N 


^ 


CHARLES    DICKENS 
AND  MARIA  BEADNELL  ("DORA") 


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Copyrighted,  1908,  by 
THE    BIBLIOPHILE    SOCIETY 

All  rights  reserved 


PREFACE 

The  originals  of  the  letters  by  Charles 
Dickens  printed  in  this  volume  are,  with  one 
exception/  in  the  handwriting  of  the  author. 
Some  of  them  are  herein  reproduced  in  pho- 
tographic facsimile.  The  letters  in  the  early 
series  were  written  to  Miss  Maria  Beadnell, 
the  young  lady  with  whom  Dickens  had  his 
first  love  affair,  just  prior  to  becoming  of  age. 
Those  in  the  later  series,  beginning  in  18^^, 
were  written  about  twenty-two  years  after, 
to  the  same  person,  who  in  the  meantime  had 
married  Mr.  Henry  Louis  Winter,  of  Number 
12  Artillery  Place,  London.  At  this  period 
Dickens  had  reached  great  prominence  in  the 
literary  world. 

The  members  of  The  Bibliophile  Society 
are  indebted  to  the  unceasing  generosity  of 
Mr.  William  K.  Bixby  for  the  rare  privilege 

>  The  exception  is  a  letter  that  was  returned  to  Dickens  by  Miss 
Beadnell,  after  a  lovers'  quarrel,  but  which  before  returning  she  care- 
fully copied  in  her  own  handwriting.    See  facsimile  at  p.  46. 

[ix] 


75372^ 


of  possessing  the  first  printed  edition  of  these 
excessively  valuable  MSS.  That  a  collection 
of  such  important  autobiographical  material 
should  have  remained  so  long  in  obscurity  is 
a  most  singular  fact.  So  sacredly  were  these 
letters  guarded  after  their  discovery  and  pur- 
chase from  a  daughter  of  Mrs.  Winter  in 
England  by  one  who  realized  their  worth,  that 
their  owner  allowed  only  a  single  one  of  them 
ever  to  be  copied,  and  that  only  for  private 
reference,  with  all  the  names  omitted.  Find- 
ing that  their  publication  in  England  would 
be  prohibited,  he  personally  brought  them  to 
America,  when  the  entire  collection  was  pur- 
chased by  Mr.  Bixby. 

If  an  authentic  autobiography  of  Dickens 
were  suddenly  to  spring  into  existence,  it 
would  produce  a  literary  sensation.  If  such  a 
work  were  found  to  contain  many  important 
identifications  of  characters  and  personal  traits 
of  the  author  which  were  unknown  to  his 
most  intimate  friends,  and  new  even  to  the 
members  of  his  own  family,  it  would  imme- 
diately excite  the  interest  of  the  entire  literary 
world.  The  present  is,  in  effect,  such  a  vol- 
ume. The  letters  of  which  it  consists  — 
which  were  written  in  the  strictest  confidence 

[X] 


and  intended  for  no  eyes  but  those  of  the  one 
to  whom  they  were  addressed  —  are  earnest, 
sincere,  and  direct  from  the  heart.  They  dis- 
close certain  life  experiences  of  the  author 
never  before  imparted  to  the  world;  in  his 
own  words,  "  things  that  I  have  locked  up  in 
my  own  breast,  and  that  I  never  thought  to 
bring  out  any  more."  Aside  from  their  per- 
sonal bearing,  they  furnish  a  key  to  the  char- 
acters and  incidents  in  several  of  the  more 
important  novels,  some  of  which  have  been 
the  subjects  of  heated  discussion  ever  since 
the  death  of  the  author.  For  instance,  they 
positively  verify  many  disputed  points  in 
David  Copperfield,  the  greatest  and  most 
personal  of  the  novels,  and  show  that  the 
love  affairs  of  its  hero  were  almost  identical 
with  those  of  Dickens  himself.  They  further 
prove  conclusively  that  in  Little  Dorrit  Dickens 
narrated  much  of  his  own  experience.  The 
personal  character  of  that  work  now  becomes 
second  only  to  David  Copperfield;  and  many 
scenes  which  have  seemed  commonplace,  when 
regarded  merely  as  fruits  of  the  novelist's 
imagination,  become  at  once  enlivened  with 
dramatic  interest. 

But  for  the  fortunate  discovery  of  these 

[  xi  ] 


letters,  no  one  would  ever  have  imagined  the 
extent  to  which  Little  Dorrit  is  in  reality  a 
continuation  of  "The  Personal  History  Ad- 
ventures, Experience  and  Observation  "  of  the 
hero  of  David  Copperfield.  In  dealing  with 
the  anticlimax  of  his  old  love  affair  Dickens 
masquerades  in  the  role  of  Arthur  Clennam 
in  Little  Dorrit,  while  the  girl  who  had  dis- 
tracted his  heart  in  boyhood  (the  original  of 
Dora  in  David  Copperfield)  was  assigned  the 
garrulous  part  of  the  flippant  Flora  Pinching. 
Plora's  father,  Mr.  Casby  (who  in  real  life  was 
George  Beadnell,  the  father  of  Maria  Beadnell, 
of  Number  2  Lombard  Street,  London,  and  in 
David  Copperfield  was  Mr.  Spenlow,  the  father 
of  Dora),  comes  in  for  his  share  of  raillery,  and 
is  penalized  severely  for  the  part  he  is  supposed 
to  have  played  in  separating  the  young  lovers. 
He  is  **  the  wooden-headed  old  Christopher," 
of  "elephantine  build,"  —  the  close-fisted  old 
patriarch  with  bottle-green  coat,  of  whom  his 
own  daughter  (Plora)  is  made  to  say,  that  he 
"  is  always  tiresome  and  putting  his  nose  every- 
where where  he  is  not  wanted."  The  verses 
by  Dickens  in  The  Bill  of  Fare  (never  before 
printed)  identify  the  originals  of  a  number  of 
characters  in  his  works  which  were  taken  from 

[xii] 


real  life.  In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Winter,  referring 
to  the  love  affairs  of  David  Copperfield,  he 
says  that  his  readers  little  thought  what  reason 
he  had  to  "know  it  was  true,  and  nothing 
more  nor  less."  In  another  of  the  letters  he 
said :  "  A  few  years  ago  (just  before  Copper- 
field)  I  began  to  write  my  Life,  intending  the 
manuscript  to  be  found  among  my  papers 
when  its  subject  should  be  concluded.  But  as 
I  began  to  approach  within  sight  of  that  part 
of  it  [referring  to  his  early  love],  I  lost  courage 
and  burned  the  rest." 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  he  refers  to  this 
circumstance  as  having  occurred  "  just  before 
Copperfield."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
on  this  account  he  changed  his  purpose,  and 
either  before  or  after  destroying  the  manu- 
script, determined  to  write  the  story  of  his 
life,  which,  mingled  with  supposititious  inci- 
dent, was  put  forth  under  the  pseudonym  of 
David  Copperfield.  The  object  of  his  youthful 
devotion  is  therein  impersonated  as  "Dora." 
He  doubtless  felt  an  irresistible  impulse  to 
write  and  unburden  his  mind  of  the  tragic 
experiences  and  disappointments  of  his  youth, 
and  when  in  the  course  of  outlining  these  he 
came  up  to  the  Maria  Beadnell  episode,  he  was 

[  xiii  1 


at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  handle  it  so  as  to 
give  it  the  required  impressiveness  without 
offending  the  members  of  his  family,  —  par- 
ticularly his  wife.  He  could  not  treat  it  lightly, 
for  it  was  the  all-absorbing  event  of  his  life. 
The  whole  plan  of  an  acknowledged  autobi- 
ography was  therefore  abandoned. 

Again,  he  was  probably  not  unmindful  of 
the  pecuniary  side  of  the  matter,  and  took 
into  consideration  the  fact  that  in  storing  his 
manuscript  away  until  *'  its  subject  should  be 
concluded,"  he  would  be  burying  one  of  his 
most  profitable  works.  It  is  extremely  doubtful 
if  even  after  his  death  the  Dickens  family 
would  ever  have  published  the  MS.  of  David 
Copperfield  under  any  autobiographical  title; 
for  it  is  observable  that,  even  to  this  day,  his 
descendants  are  unwilling  to  admit  publicly 
that  Dora  and  Flora  were  more  than  lay  figures, 
existing  only  in  the  author's  imagination. 

These  letters  would  have  been  an  excessively 
valuable  asset  to  any  of  Dickens'  biographers, 
and  even  Forster  himself  would  have  found 
in  them  many  disclosures  of  significant  facts 
which  were  entirely  strange  to  him. 

From  a  reading  of  the  first  series  of  the 
letters  written  by  Dickens  in  his  boyhood  days, 

[xiv] 


it  may  be  inferred  that  the  coquettish  girl  to 
whom  they  were  addressed  resorted  to  artful 
and  surreptitious  tactics  in  repulsing  and  dis- 
couraging his  persistent  attentions  after  she 
became  tired  of  him,  although  she  had  pre- 
viously encouraged  him  to  lavish  his  "  entire 
devotion  "  upon  her.  Whether  on  account  of 
parental  interference,  or  change  of  heart,  or 
perhaps  both,  it  seems  sure  that  she  was  deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  him,  and  doubtless  wished 
to  do  this  as  gracefully  as  possible,  and  without 
wounding  his  pride  too  deeply.  It  seems  quite 
plausible  that  with  this  in  mind  she  may  have 
designedly  arranged  with  her  friend  Mary  Anne 
Leigh  for  her  to  display  a  lively  and  unwonted 
interest  in  Dickens  and  his  affairs,  and  then  she 
proceeded  to  reprove  him  for  faithlessness  and 
fickleness,  and  hypocritically  assumed  the  air  of 
one  deeply  injured.  In  defending  himself  against 
this  accusation,  he  said  of  Miss  Leigh :  — 

*'  You  certainly  totally  and  entirely  misunder- 
stand my  feeling  with  regard  to  her  —  that 
you  could  suppose,  as  you  clearly  do  (that  is 
to  say,  if  the  subject  is  worth  a  thought  to 
you),  that  I  have  ever  really  thought  of  M.  A.  L. 
in  any  other  than  my  old  way,  you  are  mis- 
taken.   That  she  has  for  some  reason,  and  to 

[XV] 


suit  her  own  purposes,  of  late  thrown  herself 
in  my  way  1  could  plainly  see,  and  I  know  it 
was  noticed  by  others.  For  instance,  on  the 
night  of  the  play,  after  we  went  upstairs,  I 
could  not  get  rid  of  her.  God  knows  that 
I  have  no  pleasure  in  speaking  to  her,  or  any 
girl  living,  and  never  had.  May  I  add  that 
you  have  been  the  sole  exception." 

It  is  clear,  also,  that  Miss  Beadnell  accused 
Dickens  of  having  confided  inviolable  secrets 
to  Miss  Leigh,  while  she  herself  seems  to  have 
been  the  offender  in  this  respect.  In  his  own 
defence  he  wrote :  "  I  never  by  word  or  deed, 
in  the  slightest  manner,  directly  or  by  impli- 
cation, made  in  any  way  a  confidante  of  Mary 
Anne  Leigh.  .  .  .  Her  duplicity  and  disgusting 
falsehood,  however,  renders  it  quite  unneces- 
sary to  conceal  the  part  she  has  acted,  and  I 
therefore  have  now  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
she,  quite  unasked,  volunteered  the  information 
[to  friends]  that  YOU  had  made  her  a  confidante 
of  all  that  had  eoer  passed  between  us  without 
reserve.  In  proof  of  which  assertion  she  not 
only  detailed  facts  which  I  undoubtedly  thought 
she  could  have  heard  from  none  but  yourself, 
but  she  also  communicated  many  things  which 
certainly  never  occurred  at  all." 

[xvi] 


In  the  heat  of  his  boyish  anger  he  wrote  a 
scathing  note  to  Miss  Leigh,  in  which  he  said : 
*'  I  can  safely  say  that  I  never  made  a  confi- 
dante of  any  one.  I  am  perfectly  willing  to 
admit  that  if  I  had  wished  to  secure  a  confi- 
dante in  whom  candour,  secrecy,  and  kind 
honorable  feeling  were  indispensable  requisites, 
1  could  have  looked  to  none  better  calculated 
for  this  office  than  yourself;  but  still  the 
making  you  the  depository  of  my  feelings  or 
secrets  is  an  honor  I  never  presumed  to  expect, 
and  one  which  I  certainly  must  beg  most  posi- 
tively to  decline.  ...  I  would  much  rather 
mismanage  my  own  aflFairs  than  have  them 
ably  conducted  by  the  officious  interference  of 
any  one.  I  do  think  that  your  interposition 
in  this  instance,  however  well  intentioned,  has 
been  productive  of  as  much  mischief  as  it  has 
been  uncalled  for." 

In  David  Copperfield  Dickens  immortalized 
the  name,  if  not  the  character,  of  this  girl  who 
had  been  such  a  disturbing  element  in  his 
love-making  difficulties,  and  one  can  almost 
see  the  self-satisfied  smile  of  "  sweet  revenge  " 
playing  upon  his  features  as  he  wrote :  — 

"We  had  a  servant,  of  course.  She  kept 
house  for  us.    I  have  a  still  latent  belief  that 

[  xvii  ] 


she  must  have  been  Mrs.  Crupp's  daughter 
in  disguise,  we  had  such  an  awful  time  with 
Mary  Anne.  .  .  .  She  was  the  cause  of  our 
first  little  quarrel.  .  .  .  Mary  Anne's  cousin 
[a  soldier]  deserted  into  our  coal-hole,  and 
was  brought  out,  to  our  great  amazement,  by 
a  piquet  of  his  companions  in  arms,  who  took 
him  away  handcuffed  in  a  procession  that 
covered  our  front  garden  with  ignominy.  This 
nerved  me  to  get  rid  of  Mary  Anne,  who  went 
so  mildly,  on  receipt  of  wages,  that  I  was  sur- 
prised, until  I  found  out  about  the  tea-spoons, 
and  also  about  the  little  sums  she  had  borrowed 
in  my  name  of  the  tradespeople  without 
authority." 

In  18^2  Dickens  was  a  mere  youth,  and 
gave  no  immediate  promise  of  fortune  or  fame. 
His  literary  talents  were  undeveloped,  and  Miss 
Beadnell,  the  daughter  of  a  banker,  was  per- 
haps not  attracted  by  his  inauspicious  pros- 
pects, although  in  the  early  stages  of  their 
courtship  days  she  seems  to  have  been  quite 
fascinated  by  him,  and  to  have  given  no 
thought  to  such  gross  and  material  considera- 
tions. She  afterwards  married  Mr.  Winter, 
a  merchant  in  good  standing,  who  in  later 
years  became  a  bankrupt,  and  after  renewing 

[  xviii  ] 


her  correspondence  with  Dickens  twenty-three 
years  later,  she  suflFered  the  humiliating  act  of 
appeah'ng  to  him  to  use  his  influence  in  ob- 
taining some  employment  for  her  husband. 
The  unpromising  youth  whose  idolatrous  love 
she  had  spurned,  and  whose  consequent 
"wretchedness  and  misery"  had  been  the 
object  of  her  "pity,"  afterwards  became  the 
popular  idol  of  all  England  and  America,  while 
the  propitious  fortunes  of  the  man  of  her 
choice  had  meanwhile  vanished  and  become 
hopelessly  dissipated. 

In  the  most  fanciful  of  all  Dickens'  imagi- 
nations he  could  scarcely  have  conceived  a 
more  dramatic  spectacle  than  this,  in  which 
he  involuntarily  played  the  leading  part.  Hap- 
pily, however,  for  the  world  at  large  —  and 
perhaps  for  Dickens  himself  —  this  early  love 
aflfair  ended  as  it  did;  for  if  he  had  married 
the  object  of  his  first  love,  the  complacency  of 
his  mind  —  for  the  time  being,  at  least  — 
would  have  neutralized  the  ambition  which, 
fired  by  the  sting  of  defeat  and  adversity, 
produced  one  of  the  world's  greatest  literary 
geniuses. 

In  the  fortunes  of  war  the  issue  of  a  great 
battle  has  often  turned  upon  an  incident  of 

[xix] 


apparently  trivial  consequence;  and  it  has 
frequently  happened  that  single  episodes  of 
seeming  unimportance  have  brought  fortune 
and  great  renown  to  those  of  whom  these 
achievements  were  least  expected.  The  most 
painful  experiences  often  prove  to  be  blessings 
in  disguise,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  more  splendid  demonstration  of  this  truth 
than  we  have  in  the  life  of  Charles  Dickens. 

In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Winter  (nee  Miss  Bead- 
nell)  in  iSSS,  he  wrote :  "  Whatever  of  fancy, 
romance,  energy,  passion,  aspiration  and  deter- 
mination belong  to  me,  I  never  have  separated 
and  never  shall  separate  from  the  hard-hearted 
little  woman  —  you  —  whom  it  is  nothing  to 
say  I  would  have  died  for  with  the  greatest 
alacrity.  ...  It  is  a  matter  of  perfect  certainty 
to  me  that  1  began  to  fight  my  way  out  of 
poverty  and  obscurity  with  one  perpetual  idea 
of  you."  ' 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Dickens  was 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  the  stinging  rebuff 
administered  to  him  was  due  to  his  lowly  posi- 
tion in  life,  and  that  this  animated  him  with  a 

1  He  embarked  at  once  in  the  field  of  literature,  and  in  less  than 
eight  months  after  the  separation  the  first  of  his  Sketches  made  their 
appearance  in  magazine  form.  See  passage  from  his  letter  to  Forster, 
quoted  on  pages  5  and  6,  infra. 

[XX] 


zeal  which  he  had  never  before  experienced, 
and  which  otherwise  he  would  never  have 
possessed.  This  came  at  a  singularly  oppor- 
tune time,  v/hen  his  mind  was  in  its  formative 
stages,  and  the  resolutions  and  impressions  of 
that  period  remained  with  him  through  life. 

In  writing  to  Mrs.  Winter  in  later  years  he 
said :  *'  I  forget  nothing  of  those  times.  They 
are  just  as  still  and  plain  and  ckar  as  if  I  had 
never  been  in  a  crowd  since,  and  had  never 
seen  or  heard  my  own  name  out  of  my  own 
house.  .  .  .  You  so  belong  to  the  days  when 
the  qualities  that  have  done  me  most  good 
since  were  growing  in  my  boyish  heart  that  I 
cannot  end  my  answer  to  you  lightly."  His 
first  love  letters  furnish  unmistakable  evi- 
dence of  his  sincerity  and  steadfastness  of  pur- 
pose,—  qualities  which  ruled  supreme  to  the 
end.  There  have  perhaps  been  few  men  who 
throughout  their  lives  have  clung  more  tena- 
ciously to  the  memories  and  ideals  of  youth. 

Those  who  have  commonly  ascribed  a  cold- 
blooded and  unresponsive  nature  to  Dickens 
will  be  surprised  to  learn  from  these  letters 
that  there  was  concealed  within  him  an  abun- 
dance of  the  tenderest  sentiment,  and  that  his 
mind  was  highly  impressible.    There  appears, 

[  xxi  ] 


however,  to  have  been  but  one  thing  capable 
of  completely  awakening  these  delicate  sensi- 
bilities, and  that  was  the  remembrance  of  his 
first  love.  In  his  letter  of  February  1^,  18^^, 
in  which  he  tenderly  recalls  the  sad  memories 
of  his  youthful  devotion,  he  said:  "When  I 
find  myself  writing  to  you  again,  all  to  your  self, 
how  can  I  forbear  to  let  as  much  light  in  upon 
them  as  will  show  you  that  they  are  there 
still ! " 

In  writing  of  Dora,  in  part  XV  of  David 
Copper  field  (issued  in  July,  18^0),  under 
the  chapter  heading,  "Our  Housekeeping," 
Dickens  said:  "I  look  back  on  the  time  I 
write  of;  I  invoke  the  innocent  figure  that 
I  dearly  loved,  to  come  out  from  the  mists  and 
shadows  of  the  past  and  turn  its  gentle  head 
towards  me  once  again ;  and  I  can  still  declare 
that  this  one  little  speech  was  constantly  in 
my  memory."  Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  the 
still  living  Dora  should  be  seized  with  an 
impulse  to  respond  to  this  imploring  speech 
by  a  man  who  had  already  become  world- 
renowned,  any  more  than  that  the  lost  dove  in 
the  wilderness  will  respond  to  the  distant  call 
of  its  mate?  Is  it  surprising,  moreover,  when 
she  did  respond  by  writing  to  him,  that  there 

[  xxii  ] 


should  be  "a  stirring  of  the  old  fancies,"  as 
he  says?  That  Dickens  was  not  overstating 
his  former  devotion  for  the  original  of  Dora 
may  be  seen  from  the  following  passage  from 
David  Copperfield :  "If  I  may  so  express  it, 
I  was  steeped  in  Dora.  I  was  not  merely  over 
head  and  ears  in  love  with  her,  but  I  was 
saturated  through  and  through.  Enough  love 
might  have  been  wrung  out  of  me,  metaphor- 
ically speaking,  to  drown  anybody  in;  and 
there  would  have  remained  enough  within  me, 
and  all  over  me,  to  pervade  my  entire  exist- 
ence. .  .  .  The  sun  shone  Dora,  and  the  birds 
sang  Dora.  The  wind  blew  Dora,  and  the 
wild  flowers  in  the  hedges  were  all  Doras,  to 
a  bud." 

The  later  letters  show  that  in  order  to  es- 
tablish a  sure  footing  for  the  much  desired 
cordial  relationship,  Mrs.  Winter  felt  herself 
called  upon  to  oif  er  some  plausible  explanation 
for  her  actions  in  early  years,  and  whatever 
her  excuses  were,  assuredly  they  were  accepted 
at  their  full  face  value.  Precisely  what  she 
wrote  to  Dickens  we  shall  never  know,  except 
by  inference  from  his  reply,^  in  which  he  said : 

1  It  would  appear  that  Mrs.  Winter  told  Dickens  how  she  had 
pined  for  him  after  their  relationship  in  early  years  was  broken  off; 

[  xxiii  ] 


"  If  you  had  ever  told  me  then  what  you  tell 
me  now,  I  know  myself  well  enough  to  be 
thoroughly  assured  that  the  simple  truth  and 
energy  which  were  in  my  love  would  have 
overcome  everything.  ...  All  this  again  you 
have  changed  and  set  right  —  at  once  so  cour- 
ageously, so  delicately  and  so  gently,  that  you 
open  the  way  to  a  confidence  between  us 
which  still  once  more  in  perfect  innocence  and 
good  faith,  may  be  between  ourselves  alone." 
Although  Dickens  was  married  to  Miss 
Hogarth  three  years  after  boldly  vowing  to 
Maria  Beadnell,  — "  I  have  never  loved  and  I 
never  can  love  any  human  creature  breathing 
but  yourself,"  it  is  left  to  the  reader  to  judge 
whether  or  not  these  seemingly  rash  vows  of 
undying  devotion  had  any  bearing  upon  the 
*'  incompatibility  of  temperaments  "  which,  un- 
happily, resulted  in  estrangement  and  sepa- 
ration from  his  wife  more  than  twenty  years 

for  in  Little  Dorrit  he  thus  tauntingly  records  her  explanation :  "One 
more  remark,"  proceeded  Flora  with  unslackened  volubility,  "  I 
wish  to  make,  one  more  explanation  I  wish  to  offer,  for  five  days  I 
had  a  cold  in  the  head  from  crying  which  I  passed  entirely  in  the 
back  drawing-room  —  there  is  the  back  drawing-room  still  on  the 
first  floor  and  still  at  the  back  of  the  house  to  confirm  my  words." 
It  is  noteworthy,  however,  that  this  was  written  after  his  disenchant- 
ment, which  occurred  subsequent  to  writing  the  letter  from  which 
the  extract  is  taken. 

[  xxiv  ] 


later.  The  father  of  nine  children,  he  wrote 
Mrs.  Winter  in  18^^,  —  "Nobody  can  ever 
know  with  what  a  sad  heart  I  resigned  you, 
or  after  what  struggles  and  what  a  conflict. 
My  entire  devotion  to  you  and  the  wasted 
tenderness  of  those  hard  years  which  I  have 
ever  since  half-loved,  half-dreaded  to  recall, 
made  so  deep  an  impression  on  me  that  I  refer 
to  it  a  habit  of  suppression  which  now  belongs 
to  me,  which  I  know  is  no  part  of  my  original 
nature,  but  which  makes  me  chary  of  showing 
my  aflFections,  even  to  my  children,  except 
when  they  are  very  young."  Here  is  the  first 
self-confessed  reason  for  a  dominant  charac- 
teristic in  Dickens.  His  "habit  of  suppres- 
sion "  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  but 
perhaps  no  one  ever  supposed  it  to  be  "no 
part  of  his  original  nature,"  or  that  it  was 
acquired  through  disappointment  in  love. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the 
Mrs.  Winter  who  later  came  into  his  life  was 
a  contributory  factor  in  his  unfortunate  domes- 
tic infelicity.  It  was  in  Dickens'  nature  to 
live  more  in  his  books  and  idealities  than  in 
the  bosom  of  his  family,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  there  was  to  be  found  one  woman  in  a 
thousand  who  could  have  made  both  him  and 

[  XXV  ] 


herself  happy  under  these  conditions.  Later 
developments  prove  that  he  was  more  in  earnest 
than  might  have  been  imagined  v^hen  in  183^ 
he  v^rote  Maria  Beadnell,  —  "My  feeling  on 
one  subject  was  early  roused;  it  has  been 
strong,  and  it  will  be  lasting." 

Although  of  a  private  nature,  the  correspond- 
ence contains  nothing  which  need  shock 
the  most  sensitive  morals.  The  author  does 
not  expose  himself  to  unfavorable  comment; 
for  the  sentiments  expressed  are  mostly  ani- 
mated reflections  of  passions  and  impulses  of 
bygone  days,  which  he  has  permanently  re- 
corded, and  given  dramatic  color  by  the  eloquent 
descriptive  powers  of  a  brilliant  and  matured 
mind.  There  is  nothing  in  the  letters  that 
could  militate  against  his  reputation,  or  mini- 
mize the  reverence  in  which  his  memory  is 
held.  The  letters  having  been  written  to  one 
outside  of  the  author's  own  family,  we  may  be 
absolved  from  any  charge  of  exposing  inviolable 
confidences. 

If  while  reflecting  upon  fondly  cherished 
memories  of  the  past,  Dickens  unbosomed 
himself  in  an  unguarded  moment,  with  no 
thought  that  the  world  would  ever  be  the  wiser, 
this  atfords  no  reason  why  his  admirers  of 

[  xxvi  ] 


to-day  should  be  denied  admission  to  his  con- 
fidence, and  to  a  resultant  better  understand- 
ing of  his  true  character.  He  was  to  a  large 
extent  a  public  servant,  because  he  was  de- 
pendent upon  the  patronage  of  the  public  for 
his  popularity  and  support ;  therefore  the  world 
at  large  has  perhaps  a  higher  claim  upon  him 
than  Mrs.  Winter  ever  had,  and  there  can  be 
no  logical  excuse  at  this  time  for  withholding 
facts  which  will  be  as  new  and  interesting  to 
his  readers  as  they  were  precious  to  Mrs. 
Winter.  No  matter  how  studiously  we  may 
have  pondered  over  the  writings  and  biogra- 
phies of  Charles  Dickens,  after  reading  the 
contents  of  this  volume  we  shall  surely  know 
him  as  we  never  knew  him  before,  and  feel  a 
greatly  renewed  interest  in  many  of  his  writ- 
ings, —  particularly  in  David  Copperfield  and 
Little  Dorrit. 

By  no  means  the  least  interesting  among 
these  letters  are  the  ones  written  last  in  the 
second  series,  after  the  author's  disenchant- 
ment. It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  letters 
which  are  so  overflowing  with  tender  remem- 
brances and  gushing  sentiment  were  all  written 
before  the  "meeting"  took  place.  One  of 
the  strangest  features  of  the  whole  romance  is 

[  xxvii  ] 


that  Dickens  appears  to  have  lived  for  years 
in  a  perpetual  dream,  in  which  he  could  never 
picture  the  girl  he  had  loved  in  any  real  or 
imaginative  situation  apart  from  that  in  which 
he  had  known  her  in  his  boyhood.  In  one  of 
his  exuberant  moods  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Winter, 
— "  You  are  always  the  same  in  my  remem- 
brance. When  you  say  you  are '  toothless,  fat, 
old,  and  ugly'  (which  I  don't  believe),  I  fly 
away  to  the  house  in  Lombard  Street,  which 
is  pulled  down,  as  if  it  were  necessary  that  the 
very  bricks  and  mortar  should  go  the  way  of 
my  airy  castles,  and  see  you  in  a  sort  of  rasp- 
berry colored  dress  with  a  little  black  trimming 
at  the  top  —  black  velvet  it  seems  to  be  made 
of  —  cut  into  Vandykes  —  an  immense  number 
of  Vandykes  —  with  my  boyish  heart  pinned 
like  a  captured  butterfly  on  every  one  of 
them."  But  when  the  awakening  finally  came, 
alas,  he  found  that  the  "  vision  of  his  youth  " 
had,  as  a  living  reality,  fallen  far  short  of  his 
fanciful  idealization.  The  dream  of  twenty 
years  was  over,  and  the  displeasures  of  the 
sudden  awakening  were  forthwith  recorded 
in  Little  Dorrit^  where  the  Dora  of  his  youth 

1  If  the  reader  has  a  copy  of  Little  Dorrit  at  hand,  turn  to  one  of 
its  early  chapters,  entitled  "  Patriarchal,"  and  read  it  through.    For 

[  xxviii  ] 


was  transformed  into  the  Flora  of  his  mature 

years. 

Note.  —  The  foregoing  Preface  was  written 
before  the  manuscripts  were  placed  in  the  hands 
of  Professor  Baker,  and  the  impressions  and 
deductions  recorded  are  such  as  presented 
themselves  to  the  writer  after  a  careful  study 
of  the  correspondence.  It  was  the  intention 
to  omit  from  these  prefatory  remarks  any  pas- 
sages that  might  prove  to  be  a  repetition  of 
comments  made  by  the  editor,  but  upon  com- 
paring this  with  his  work  it  was  found  that 
scarcely  any  of  the  comments  are  paralleled, 
and  that  conclusions  disagree  in  but  a  single 
instance  —  that  in  relation  to  the  Mary  Anne 
Leigh  episode.  It  will  be  seen  that  Pro- 
fessor Baker  contends  that  she  herself  was 
in  love  with  Dickens  and  that  the  seed  of 
dissension  sowed  by  her  resulted  from  this 

Clennam,  substitute  Dickens;  for  Flora  Pinching,  substitute  Mrs. 
Winter ;  and  supplant  Mr.  Casby  by  Mr.  George  Beadnell,  Maria  Bead- 
nell's  father.  How  undisguisedly  Dickens  expresses  his  characteristic 
melancholy  in  making  Clennam  say,  as  he  sat  musing  before  the 
dying  embers  in  the  fireplace, —  "And  turned  his  gaze  back  upon 
the  gloomy  vista  by  which  he  had  come  to  that  stage  in  his  exist- 
ence: 'So  long,  so  bare,  so  blank!  No  childhood,  no  youth,  ex- 
cept for  one  remembrance; '  the  one  remembrance  proved,  only  that 
day,  to  be  a  piece  of  folly  I  .  .  .  The  one  tender  recollection  of  his 
experience  would  not  bear  the  test,  and  melted  away." 

[  xxix  ] 


attachment  and  her  consequent  pique  over 
her  inability  to  obtain  any  responsiveness  from 
him.  Although  with  no  thought  of  putting 
forth  any  theory  in  opposition  to  that  of  the 
distinguished  editor,  yet  the  point  is  admittedly 
an  interesting  one,  and  since  intricate  puzzles 
are  more  or  less  absorbing,  particularly  when 
they  concern  the  bewildering  mysteries  of  a 
woman's  heart,  it  may  be  that  the  reader  will 
enjoy  the  contrasting  views  presented. 

Henry  H.  Harper 


[  XXX  ] 


>       4 


>  » »      •  • 


I .   •     •   •      > 

' ,  • .  •  •  • .  • 

•     1  >  •  1 


*   ■>   «  J  -^  . 


CHARLES    DICKENS 
AND  MARIA  BEADNELL  ("DORA") 

Letters  written  by  Charles  Dickens  in  his 
youth  are  extremely  rare.  Four  only  have  been 
printed.  His  Letters,  edited  by  his  sister-in- 
law,  Miss  Georgina  Hogarth,  and  his  daughter 
Mary,  contain  only  three  dated  before  1837, 
when  Dickens  was  already  twenty-five  years 
old.  One  of  these,  written  in  18^3,  is  to  his 
future  brother-in-law,  Henry  Austin,  and  two, 
of  183^,  are  to  his  fiancee,  Miss  Catherine 
Hogarth.  The  editors  state  that  though  their 
"request  for  the  loan  of  letters  was  so  promptly 
and  fully  responded  to,  that  we  have  been  pro- 
vided with  more  than  sufficient  material  for 
our  work,"  yet  they  "  have  been  able  to  procure 
so  few  early  letters  of  any  general  interest  that 
we  have  put  these  first  years  together."  *  Under 
the  dates  1833-36  they  print  only  the  three 
letters  already  mentioned,  —  one  of  these,  as 
given,  only  a  fragment. 

^  The  Letters  of  Charles  Dickens,  i  vol.,  1893,  pp.  vii,  3. 
11] 


1  •        • 

•:  •    • 


In  Hotten's  Charles  Dickens,  the  Story  of  his 
Life,  a  letter  of  the  reportorial  days  of  Dickens 
on  the  Morning  Chronicle  (183^-36)  is  printed 
with  the  comment,  —  "  This  is,  in  all  likelihood, 
the  only  letter  of  Dickens'  reporting  days  now 
in  existence."^ 

That  letters  written  to  Dickens  in  this  early 
part  of  his  career  should  be  lacking  is  easily 
explained.  In  September,  i860,  he  carefully 
destroyed  all  correspondence  up  to  that  time 
received  by  him.  Writing  to  Mr.  Wills,  his 
fellow-editor  of  Household  fVords  and  All  the 
Year  Round,  he  said :  — 

"  Yesterday  [Sept.  3]  I  burnt  in  the  field  at 
Gad's  Hill  the  accumulated  letters  and  papers 
of  twenty  years.  They  sent  up  a  smoke  like 
the  genie  when  he  got  out  of  the  casket  on  the 
seashore ;  and  as  it  was  an  exquisite  day  when 
I  began,  and  rained  very  heavily  when  I  fin- 
ished, I  suspect  my  correspondence  of  having 
overcast  the  face  of  the  heavens."  ^ 

Any  admirer  of  Dickens  and  his  work  must 
echo  very  regretfully  the  words  of  Charles 

1  It  is  reported  that  some  ten  years  ago  a  series  of  letters  from 
Dickens  to  tlie  friend  of  liis  youtii,  Henry  KoUe,  clianged  hands  in 
Birmingham,  England.  The  present  editor  hopes  that  the  publica- 
tion of  the  letters  in  this  book  may  bring  this  set  to  Hght,  for  they 
should  supplement  and  explain  the  letters  here  given. 

a  The  Letters  of  Charles  Dickens,  1893,  p.  501. 

[2] 


Dickens  the  younger  in  regard  to  this  whole- 
sale destruction  of  letters  and  papers :  "  Who 
shall  say  what  records  invaluable  to  the  biog- 
rapher blew  into  ashes  that  September  morn- 
ing, in  the  meadows  by  the  cedars ! "  ^ 

In  this  absence  of  early  letters  to  or  from 
Dickens,  the  discovery  of  some  half-dozen 
written  before  he  had  won  any  literary  posi- 
tion for  himself,  and  antedating  any  heretofore 
published,  would  be  interesting  enough.  But 
when  these  letters  are  seen  to  be  not  only 
thoroughly  characteristic  and  intimately  per- 
sonal, but  proof  of  an  early  love  aifair  of  great 
intensity  at  the  time  and  of  lasting  signifi- 
cance for  Dickens  and  his  work,  the  find 
becomes  exciting.  When  chance,  or  the  as- 
siduity of  a  collector,  adds  to  these  early  letters 
another  set  which  dramatically  reveals  an  after- 
math of  this  youthful  romance,  occurring  some 
twenty  years  later,  surely  the  collection  has 
the  greatest  possible  interest  for  all  readers  of 
Dickens. 

John  Forster,  the  closest  friend  of  the  novel- 
ist, and  his  literary  executor,  comparing  Dickens 
and  David  Copperfield  in  his  Life  of  Charles 
Dickens,  wrote :  "  He  too  had  his  Dora  at  ap- 

'  Introduction  to  The  Uncommercial  Traveller,  1892. 

[3] 


parently  the  same  hopeless  elevation;  striven 
for  as  the  one  only  thing  to  be  attained,  and 
even  more  unattainable,  for  neither  did  he  suc- 
ceed nor  happily  did  she  die ;  but  the  one  idol, 
like  the  other,  supplying  the  motive  to  exertion 
for  the  time,  and  otherwise  opening  out  to  the 
idolater,  both  in  fact  and  in  fiction,  a  highly 
unsubstantial,  happy,  foolish  time.  I  used  to 
laugh  and  tell  him  I  had  no  belief  in  any  but 
the  book  Dora,  until  the  incident  of  a  sudden 
reappearance  of  the  real  one  in  his  life,  nearly 
six  years  after  Copperfield  was  written,  con- 
vinced me  there  had  been  a  more  actual  foun- 
dation for  those  chapters  of  his  book  than  I  was 
ready  to  suppose."  ^ 

The  importance  of  this  early  love  aflFair  the 
Dickens  family  has  either  ignored  or,  appar- 
ently, sought  to  minimize.  In  the  Letters  appear 
one  letter  and  part  of  another,  both  written 
in  18^^,  to  the  object  of  his  youthful  love, 
then  married  and  settled  as  the  wife  of  Mr. 
Henry  Winter.  The  only  reference  to  Mrs. 
Winter  in  the  Narrative  preceding  the  letters 
of  this  section  of  the  book  is  —  "A  very  dear 
friend  and  companion  of  Charles  Dickens  in 
his  youth."    In  the  Biographical  Edition  of 

»  Forster's  Life  of  Charles  Dickens,  1872,  vol.  i,  pp.  92,  93. 

[4] 


the  works  of  Dickens,  his  eldest  son,  as  editor, 
after  urging  that  Mr.  Forster  in  certain  remarks 
of  his  should  have  exercised  "some  of  that 
discretion  which  is  always  supposed  to  be  left 
to  biographers,  but  which,  unfortunately,  they 
do  not  always  think  fit  to  employ,"  says: 
"  There  is  some  reference  in  Mr.  Forster's  Life 
to  a  '  Dora,'  who  came  across  Charles  Dickens' 
path  very  early  in  his  career  —  when  he  was 
eighteen,  in  fact,  —  but  as  she  married  some- 
body else,  and  developed  afterwards  into  the 
'  Flora '  of  Little  Dorrit,  she  could  have  had  in 
reality  very  little  to  do  with  Dora  Spenlow, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  'child-wife'  was  the 
idealized  recollection  of  the  dream  of  a  ro- 
mantic young  man."^  Yet  Dickens  himself 
wrote  to  Forster  in  18^^,  when  the  latter 
persisted  in  refusing  to  believe  that  Dora 
reproduced  at  all  accurately  any  past  expe- 
rience of  his  friend :  — 

"I  don't  quite  apprehend  what  you  mean 
by  my  overrating  the  strength  of  the  feeling  of 
five-and-twenty  years  ago.  If  you  mean  of 
my  own  feeling,  and  will  only  think  what  the 
desperate  intensity  of  my  nature  is,  and  that 
this  began  when  I  was  Charley's  age ;  that  it 

1  David  Copperfield,  Introduction,  p.  xxi. 
[5] 


excluded  every  other  idea  from  my  mind  for 
four  years,  at  a  time  of  life  when  four  years 
are  equal  to  four  times  four ;  and  that  I  went 
at  it  with  a  determination  to  overcome  all  the 
difficulties,  which  fairly  lifted  me  up  into  that 
newspaper  life,  and  floated  me  away  over  a 
hundred  men's  heads;  then  you  are  wrong, 
because  nothing  can  exaggerate  that.  I  have 
positively  stood  amazed  at  myself  ever  since  1 — 
And  so  I  suffered,  and  so  worked,  and  so  beat 
and  hammered  away  at  the  maddest  romances 
that  ever  got  into  any  boy's  head  and  stayed 
there,  that  to  see  the  mere  cause  of  it  all,  now, 
loosens  my  hold  upon  myself.  Without  for  a 
moment  sincerely  believing  that  it  would  have 
been  better  if  we  had  never  got  separated,  I 
cannot  see  the  occasion  of  much  emotion  as 
I  should  see  anyone  else.  No  one  can  imag- 
ine in  the  most  distant  degree  what  pain  the 
recollection  gave  me  in  Copperfield.  And, 
just  as  I  can  never  open  that  book  as  I  open 
any  other  book,  I  cannot  see  the  face  (even  at 
four-and-forty),  or  hear  the  voice,  without 
going  wandering  away  over  the  ashes  of  all 
that  youth  and  hope  in  the  wildest  manner.  " 
And  in  one  of  the  second  set  of  letters 
printed  in  this  book  Dickens  wrote :  "  I  fancy — 

[6] 


though  you  may  not  have  thought  in  the  old 
time  how  manfully  I  loved  you,  —  that  you  may 
have  seen  in  one  of  my  books  a  faithful  reflec- 
tion of  the  passion  I  had  for  you,  and  may 
have  thought  that  it  was  something  to  have 
been  loved  so  well,  and  may  have  seen  in 
little  bits  of  '  Dora '  touches  of  your  old  self 
sometimes,  and  a  grace  here  and  there  that 
may  be  revived  in  your  little  girls,  years  hence, 
for  the  bewilderment  of  some  other  young 
lover  —  though  he  will  never  be  as  terribly 
in  earnest  as  I  and  David  Copperfield  were. 
People  used  to  say  to  me  how  pretty  all  that 
was,  and  how  fanciful  it  was,  and  how  ele- 
vated it  was  above  the  little  foolish  loves  of 
very  young  men  and  women.  But  they  little 
thought  what  reason  I  had  to  know  it  was 
true  and  nothing  more  nor  less.  ...  As  I  have 
said,  I  fancy  you  know  all  about  it  quite  as 
well  as  I  do,  however.  I  have  a  strong  belief  — 
there  is  no  harm  in  adding  hope  to  that  — 
that  perhaps  you  have  once  or  twice  laid  down 
the  book,  and  thought  *  How  dearly  that  boy 
must  have  loved  me,  and  how  vividly  the  man 
remembers  it  I' " 

Surely,  after  these  two  statements  of  Dick- 
ens, it  is  idle  further  to  contend  that  Dora 

[7] 


Spenlow  is  only  an  "idealized  recollection  of 
the  dream  of  a  romantic  young  man." 

How,  too,  can  any  except  the  most  con- 
ventional and  the  habitually  censorious  fmd 
anything  to  censure  in  an  ardent  but  honor- 
able love  affair  preceding  the  engagement  of 
Dickens  to  Miss  Hogarth  by  some  two  years 
or  more?  How  many  men  marry  the  first 
woman  adored  by  them  ?  What  possible  crit- 
icism is  it  on  the  woman  one  marries,  that  one 
may  already  have  been  in  love  with  another? 
In  love,  as  in  other  human  relations,  one's 
judgment  may  be  tempered  to  sanity  and  wis- 
dom by  earlier  experience.  Romeo  had  his 
Rosalind,  and  to  that  extent  at  least  most 
men  are  Romeos.  And  many  a  wifely  Juliet 
knows  that  for  nothing  does  her  spouse  more 
devoutly  thank  his  Fate  than  that  Rosalind 
threw  him  over,  thus  saving  him  for  a  wiser 
and  truer  companionship.  Even  if  the  second 
choice  prove  not  wholly  happy,  why  must  the 
first,  out  of  respect  for  the  second,  be  ignored 
or  denied  by  biographers?  As  we  shall  see, 
the  conduct  of  young  Dickens  as  mirrored  in 
these  love  letters  gave  him  no  ground  for  later 
mortification  or  even  regret. 

Except  to  the  most  hypercritical  mind,  read- 

[8] 


ing  these  early  letters  can  bring  no  sensation 
except  pleasure  in  their  manly  ardor,  only  sym- 
pathy for  the  deeply  moved  and  suffering 
youth,  and  a  better  understanding  of  the 
mood  in  which  David  Copperfield  was  written, 
as  well  as  of  the  man  who  wrote  it. 

The  only  valid  objection  against  publishing 
these  letters  years  ago,  when  some  at  least  of 
the  second  set  were  known  to  the  editors  of 
the  Letters,  was  that  it  might  have  pained  the 
woman  to  whom  both  sets  were  written  to 
see  them  in  print  —  not  because  there  was  any 
wrong  in  them,  but  because  they  are  intimately 
personal.  Now  that  she  has  been  dead  over 
twenty  years  and  it  is  the  day  of  the  grand- 
children of  her  contemporaries,  surely  it  is  not 
necessary  to  hold  any  of  them  back  longer  if 
they  contain  important  information,  either  cor- 
rective or  supplementary,  for  the  student  of 
Dickens  and  his  work.  Such  information  the 
two  sets  —  and  they  cannot  be  given  sepa- 
rately —  do  provide. 

Who  was  this  early  love  of  Dickens?  In 
1830  the  manager  at  Smith,  Payne  and  Smith's, 
the  bankers,  of  Number  1  Lombard  Street,  was 
John  Beadnell.  He  lived  close  by,  at  Number 
2  Lombard  Street.    Sharing  his  quarters  was 

[9] 


his  brother,  George  Beadnell.  After  starting 
life  as  an  architect,  George  Beadnell  had  been 
induced  by  his  brother  to  enter  the  service  of 
the  bank,  in  which,  by  I83O,  he  held  a  respon- 
sible position.  Later  he  became  its  manager. 
This  George  Beadnell  had  three  daughters, 
Margaret,  Anne,  and  Maria.  In  I830  Maria 
Beadnell  was  nineteen.  To  this  family  young 
Dickens  was  introduced  by  his  friend  Henry 
Kolle,  a  quilt-printer  of  Number  14  Addle 
Street,  Aldermanbury.  This  was  about  a  year 
and  a  half  after  Dickens  had  once  for  all  given 
up  Law  by  withdrawing  from  the  office  of 
Ellis  and  Blackmore  of  Gray's  Inn. 

When  Dickens  was  first  introduced  to  the 
Beadnells,  he  was  either  just  at  the  close  of 
his  seventeenth  or  just  entering  on  his  eight- 
eenth year.  His  introduction  to  this  family, 
well-to-do,  and  fond  of  entertaining  a  large 
circle  of  friends,  also  comfortably  placed  in 
life,  meant  a  real  metamorphosis  in  the  life  of 
the  hypersensitive  youth. 

In  order  to  appreciate  rightly  this  metamor- 
phosis we  must  remember  what  had  been 
happening  to  Dickens  in  the  period  just  pre- 
ceding this  introduction.  The  years  between 
ten  and  this  time  had  been  full  of  miserable 

[10] 


unhappiness  at  first,  later  ameliorated;  but 
still  the  youth  was  restless  and  full  of  blind 
discontent,  because  his  life  did  not  satisfy,  or 
promise  to  satisfy,  certain  vague  longings,  am- 
bitions, dreams,  —  call  them  what  you  will. 
It  is  somewhat  hard  for  any  American  lad  to 
read  with  perfect  sympathy  the  bitter  out- 
pourings of  the  mature  Dickens  as  to  his  ex- 
periences as  a  coverer  of  paste  pots  in  the 
"Warren's  Blacking"  establishment.  So  in- 
tense was  his  feeling  of  the  degradation  this 
work  meant  for  him  that  after  it  was  over  he 
never  mentioned  the  experience  to  any  one  till  a 
chance  remark  of  a  friend  to  Forster  that  he  had 
seen  Dickens  as  a  lad  working  in  this  place  in- 
duced him,  after  a  hard  struggle  with  himself, 
to  disburden  his  mind  of  this  nightmare. 

Apparently,  he  had  not  feared  moral  de- 
terioration, but  was  outraged  by  the  sense 
that  as  an  individual  he  was  slipping  under 
in  the  social  current,  —  was  losing,  perhaps 
forever,  the  position  into  which  he  had  been 
born  and  the  possibilities  of  advancement  of 
which  he  had  dreamed,  if  not  definitely,  at 
least  unceasingly.  It  is  necessary  to  speak  of 
this  earlier  experience  in  some  detail,  for  un- 
less one  thoroughly  comprehends  the  morbid 

[H] 


sensitiveness  of  the  lad,  one  misses  the  full 
significance  of  both  the  early  and  the  late 
correspondence  in  the  pages  to  follow.  As  a 
youth  Dickens  was  not  only  morbidly  sensi- 
tive, but  he  carried  always  with  him  a  sense 
that  he  had  been  defrauded  of  much  that  home 
life  meant  to  most  of  his  contemporaries.  The 
shifting  from  place  to  place,  the  ebbing  for- 
tunes of  his  family,  the  easy-going  tempera- 
ment of  his  father,  had  all  made  his  childhood 
trying  enough.  Dickens  must  have  felt  that 
he  had  been  to  some  extent  neglected  by  his 
parents,  —  that  he  had  been  cheated  by  Fate 
of  his  birthright.  Any  home  of  even  ordinary 
stability  and  comfort  into  which  he  could  enter 
freely  must,  therefore,  have  seemed  to  him  a 
real  haven. 

Moreover,  as  has  been  said,  a  sense  of  his 
own  fitness  for  unusual  things,  a  vague  vision 
of  his  own  latent  powers,  came  early  to  the 
precocious  boy.  This  is  what  moved  him  to 
tears  of  mortified  ambition  when  his  sister 
Fanny,  as  a  pupil  of  the  Royal  Academy 
of  Music,  received  a  prize  in  public.  These 
are  his  own  words  describing  his  feelings  at 
the  time :  "  I  could  not  bear  to  think  of  my- 
self —  beyond  the  reach  of  all  such  honorable 

[12] 


emulation  and  success.  The  tears  ran  down 
my  face.  I  felt  as  if  my  heart  were  rent.  I 
prayed,  when  I  went  to  bed  that  night,  to  be 
lifted  out  of  the  humiliation  and  neglect  in 
which  I  was.  I  never  had  suffered  so  much 
before.    There  was  no  envy  in  this."^ 

Certainly  this  seems  very  like  petty  envy, 
unless  one  can  read  the  words  with  a  clear 
comprehension  of  the  unquestionable  fact  that 
a  child  of  fourteen  may  have  a  dim  prescience 
of  his  later  fame.  Read  this  passage  sympa- 
thetically and  it  is  easy  to  understand  the 
agony  with  which  the  child,  dimly  sure  that 
the  vast  world  held  great  triumphs  for  him 
somehow,  somewhere,  at  some  time,  but  as 
yet  too  young  to  know  how,  where,  or  when, 
and  only  sure  of  ridicule  if  he  spoke  out  his 
vague  sensations,  saw  the  doors  of  opportunity 
slowly,  inevitably  for  his  little  strength,  closing 
upon  him.  Grasp  this  state  of  mind,  and  the 
misery  of  the  "  Warren's  Blacking  "  experience 
at  once  becomes  clear. 

But  what  had  made  the  child  intractably  mis- 
erable had  made  the  youth  extremely  restless. 
After  some  two  years  as  an  office  lad  with 
lawyers,  he  recognized  the  painful  slowness 

1  Forster's  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  66. 
[13  1 


of  any  possible  rise  in  the  Law,  and,  ever  ready 
to  better  himself,  took  a  hint  from  his  father. 
The  latter  had  either  recently  learned  short- 
hand reporting  or  had  within  a  few  months 
brought  to  mastery  some  knowledge  of  it 
already  acquired  by  him  as  a  clerk  to  the  Navy 
at  Portsmouth  and  Chatham.  In  David  Cop- 
perfield  Dickens  has  described  the  persever- 
ance by  which  he  conquered  the  mysteries  of 
Gurney's  system  of  shorthand :  — 

"  I  had  heard  that  many  men  distinguished 
in  various  pursuits  had  begun  life  by  reporting 
the  debates  in  Parliament.  Traddles  having 
mentioned  newspapers  to  me,  as  one  of  his 
hopes,  I  had  put  the  two  things  together,  and 
told  Traddles  in  my  letter  that  I  wished  to  know 
how  I  could  qualify  myself  for  this  pursuit.  .  . 

"  I  bought  an  approved  scheme  of  the  noble 
art  and  mystery  of  stenography  (which  cost 
me  ten  and  sixpence),  and  plunged  into  a  sea 
of  perplexity  that  brought  me,  in  a  few  weeks, 
to  the  confines  of  distraction.  .  .  . 

"  It  might  have  been  quite  heart-breaking,  but 
for  Dora,  who  was  the  stay  and  anchor  of  my 
tempest-driven  bark.  Every  scratch  in  the 
scheme  was  a  gnarled  oak  in  the  forest  of 
difficulty,  and  I  went  on  cutting  them  down, 

[14] 


one  after  another,  with  such  vigor,  that  in 
three  or  four  months  I  was  in  a  condition  to 
make  an  experiment  on  one  of  our  crack 
speakers  in  the  Commons.  Shall  I  ever  forget 
how  the  crack  speaker  walked  oflF  from  me  be- 
fore I  began,  and  left  my  imbecile  pencil  stag- 
gering about  the  paper  as  if  it  were  in  a  fit  I " 

All  this  indomitable  purpose,  however,  was 
eventually  so  eifective  that  a  friend  made  in 
the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons  declared 
long  afterward :  "  There  never  was  such  a 
shorthand  reporter."  Even  as  a  youngster  of 
seventeen  or  eighteen,  Dickens  had  discovered 
the  rules  of  life  which  were  to  carry  him  to 
success :  "  Whatever  I  have  tried  to  do  in  life, 
I  have  tried  with  all  my  heart  to  do  well. 
What  I  have  devoted  myself  to,  I  have  de- 
voted myself  to  completely.  Never  to  put  one 
hand  to  anything  on  which  I  could  throw 
my  whole  self,  and  never  to  affect  deprecia- 
tion of  my  work,  whatever  it  was,  I  find  now 
to  have  been  my  golden  rules." 

At  first,  after  leaving  Ellis  and  Blackmore, 
he  worked  as  a  reporter  for  one  of  the  ofllces 
in  Doctors'  Commons,  with  some  opportuni- 
ties in  other  law  courts.  It  would  seem  that 
when  he  first  met  the  Beadnell  family  he  was 

[15] 


out  of  this  drudgery,  but  was  not  as  yet  started 
on  his  career  as  a  parliamentary  reporter.  It 
could  not,  however,  have  been  very  long  after 
this  meeting  that  he  joined  the  forces  of  the 
True  Sun,  for  this  opening  came  to  him  in 

1831. 

Nor  is  the  rapidity  with  which  his  intimacy 
with  the  Beadnells  developed  at  all  remarkable. 
A  youth  of  unusual  social  capacity  and  per- 
sonal charm  found  in  the  family  a  home  life 
that  offered  him  much  that  he  had,  in  his  own 
home,  longed  for  in  vain.  The  young  men 
frequenting  the  house  numbered  among  them 
two  warm  friends  of  his,  David  Lloyd  and 
Henry  Kolle.  Each  of  these  was  in  love  with 
a  daughter  of  Mr.  Beadnell.  Lloyd  married  the 
eldest,  Margaret,  April  20,  18^1,  and  Kolle 
married  the  second  sister,  Anne,  May  21, 1833. 
What  wonder  that  young  Dickens,  following 
suit,  should  fall  in  love  with  the  youngest 
daughter,  Maria!  Evidently  Mrs.  Beadnell 
was  kind  to  him,  for  he  wrote  of  her:  — 

It  chances  to  've  been  by  the  fates  brought  about, 
That  she  was  the  means  of  first  bringing  me  out :  — 
All  my  thanks  for  that  &  her  kindness  since  then 
1  'd  vainly  endeavor  to  tell  with  my  pen.^ 

1  See  the  verses  in  The  Bill  of  Fare,  infra. 
[16] 


What  wonder,  too,  that  Maria  Beadnell  flirted 
with  him,  and  rather  desperately  1  One  has 
only  to  look  at  Mrs.  Barrows'  miniature  of 
Dickens  at  the  age  of  eighteen  to  see  the  truth 
of  a  description  of  him  as  a  fellow-clerk  in  the 
lawyers'  office  remembered  him  at  sixteen,  and 
to  understand  how  great  must  have  been  the 
charm  of  his  face  when  in  the  full  play  of  ani- 
mated conversation.    The  fellow-clerk  wrote: 

"  He  was  rather  a  short  but  stout-built  boy, 
and  carried  himself  very  upright — his  head 
well  up  —  and  the  idea  he  gave  me  was  that 
he  must  have  been  drilled  by  a  military  in- 
structor. His  dress  in  some  measure,  perhaps, 
contributed  to  that  impression.  He  wore  a 
frock-coat  (or  surtout,  as  it  was  then  generally 
called),  buttoned  up,  of  dark  blue  cloth,  trousers 
to  match,  and  (as  was  the  fashion  at  the  time) 
buttoned  with  leather  straps  over  the  boots; 
black  neckerchief,  but  no  shirt  collar  showing. 
His  complexion  was  of  healthy  pink  —  almost 
glowing — rather  a  round  face,  fine  forehead, 
beautiful  expressive  eyes  full  of  animation,  a 
firmly  set  mouth,  a  good-sized,  rather  straight 
nose,  but  not  at  all  too  large.  His  hair  was  a 
beautiful  brown,  and  worn  long,  as  was  then 
the  fashion.    His  cap  was  like  the  undress  cap 

[17] 


of  an  officer  in  the  army,  of  some  shining  ma- 
terial with  a  narrow  shining  leather  strap 
running  round  the  point  of  the  chin.  His  ap- 
pearance was  altogether  decidedly  military.  I 
always  thought  he  must  have  adopted  this 
from  his  having  lived  at  Chatham.  He  looked 
very  clean  and  well  fed  and  cared  for." 

Young  Dickens  was  not  only  keenly  intelli- 
gent, he  was  also  well  read.  He  more  than 
once  declared  that  he  regarded  these  years  of 
his  later  teens  as  perhaps  the  most  useful  in 
his  life,  and  very  properly,  for  when  he  was  not 
busy  with  his  stenographic  work  or  with  mel- 
lowing social  intercourse  he  was  reading  assid- 
uously at  the  British  Museum.  He  took  out 
his  first  card  on  the  eighth  of  February,  1830, 
the  earliest  possible  moment  at  which  he 
could  have  a  card  of  his  own.  He  had  reached 
eighteen,  the  prescribed  age,  the  day  before. 

He  had,  too,  that  charm  so  telling  with  the 
inexperienced  and  sentimental  feminine  mind 
which  springs  from  a  reputed  "  knowledge  of 
the  world."  During  the  years  between  ten 
and  nineteen  he  saw  a  vast  deal  of  London 
life  in  all  its  ins  and  outs.  He  had  had  un- 
usual opportunities  to  know  its  seamy  side 
from  the  days  of  his  father's  insolvency  and 

[18] 


his  own  bitter  associations  with  that  social 
Sindbad,  the  blacking  establishment,  through 
his  days  in  the  lawyers'  offices,  to  his  work  as 
reporter  even  for  the  police  courts.  Dickens 
once  said  of  this  period  to  Forster :  "  I  looked  at 
nothing  in  particular,  but  nothing  escaped  me." 

How  worldly-wise  he  must  have  felt  at 
times  when  the  other  dark  but  frequent  mood 
of  self-pity  was  not  uppermost  1  How  experi- 
enced he  must  have  seemed  to  the  Beadnell 
daughters,  and  even  to  his  far  less  experienced 
friends,  Lloyd,  the  tea  merchant,  and  Kolle,  the 
prosperous  young  quilt-printer  1  When  one 
remembers  that  a  wild  humor,  a  genius  for 
caricature,  were  with  him  inborn,  one  knows 
his  talk  must  have  seemed  to  this  young  circle 
of  friends  as  brilliant  as  possible.  Nor  did  he 
at  all  lack  the  assurance  necessary  for  bringing 
out  to  the  best  conversational  advantage  his 
memories  and  ideas.  Skill  in  dealing  with  his 
fellows  was  another  inborn  power.  Forster 
first  met  him,  on  the  True  Sun,  when  Dickens 
had  just  been  the  successful  leader  of  a  strike 
among  the  reporters. 

To  an  unusual  knowledge  of  the  world  and 
a  humorous  appreciation  of  what  he  saw  and 
heard,  young  Dickens  added  great  mimetic 

[19] 


power.  Almost  as  early  as  we  can  trace 
Dickens  as  a  child  we  find  him  and  his  sister 
on  the  table  singing  songs,  and  acting  them 
out  as  they  sang,  for  the  edification  of  admir- 
ing parents  and  friends.  The  ability  that 
made  his  readings  later  in  life  famous  all  over 
the  English-speaking  world  was  early  mani- 
fested. He  thought  seriously  at  one  time  — 
apparently  when  he  was  about  twenty  —  of 
going  on  the  stage.^ 

1  "  I  have  often  thought  that  I  should  certainly  have  been  as  suc- 
cessful on  the  boards  as  I  have  been  between  them.  When  I  was 
about  twenty,  and  knew  three  or  four  successive  years  of  Mathews' 
/it  Homes  from  sitting  in  the  pit  to  hear  them,  I  wrote  to  Bartley, 
who  was  stage  manager  at  Covent  Garden,  and  told  him  how  young 
I  was,  and  exactly  what  I  thought  1  could  do ;  and  that  I  believed  1 
had  a  strong  perception  of  character  and  oddity,  and  a  natural 
power  of  reproducing  in  my  own  person  what  1  had  observed  in 
others.  There  must  have  been  something  in  the  letter  that  struck 
the  authorities,  for  Bartley  wrote  to  me  almost  immediately  to  say 
that  they  were  busy  getting  up  The  Hunchback  (so  they  were  !)  but 
that  they  would  communicate  with  me  again,  in  a  fortnight.  Punc- 
tual to  the  time  another  letter  came  with  an  appointment  to  do 
anything  of  Mathews'  I  pleased  before  him  and  Charles  Kemble  on 
a  certain  day  at  the  theatre.  My  sister  Fanny  was  in  the  secret  and 
was  to  go  with  me  to  play  the  songs.  I  was  laid  up  when  the  day 
came  with  a  terrible  bad  cold  and  an  inflammation  of  the  face;  the 
beginning,  by  the  bye,  of  that  annoyance  in  one  ear  to  which  I  am 
subject  at  this  day.  I  wrote  to  say  so,  and  added  that  I  would  re- 
sume my  application  next  season.  I  made  a  great  splash  in  the 
Gallery  soon  afterwards ;  the  Chronicle  opened  to  me,  1  had  a  dis- 
tinction in  the  little  world  of  the  newspapers  which  made  me  like 
it;  began  to  write,  didn't  want  money,  had  never  thought  of  the 

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Though  the  Beadnells  did  not,  so  far  as  we 
know,  share  in  his  amateur  theatricals,  his 
friend  Kolle  certainly  did.  By  1833 — whether 
before  or  just  after  the  break  with  Maria 
Beadnell  is  not  perfectly  clear  —  Dickens  was 
engaged  in  writing  a  travesty  of  Shakespeare, 
The  O'Tbello,  which  was  given  privately  by 
his  own  family.  In  the  same  year  he  took  the 
leading  parts  in  the  group  of  plays  named  on 
the  program  inserted  opposite.^  It  is  earlier 
than  any  other  playbill  of  performances  by 
Dickens,  and  shows  that  he  led  all  of  his 
family  and  his  intimates  into  the  work  that 
even  when  he  was  busiest  later  in  life  he  could 
find  time  to  treat  as  play.  Indeed  the  bill  in- 
troduces us  to  a  group  of  friends  in  Dickens' 
youth  not  before  known  to  the  public.    Ap- 

stage  but  as  a  means  of  getting  it ;  gradually  left  off  turning  my 
thoughts  that  way;  and  never  resumed  the  idea.  I  never  told  you 
this,  did  I  ?  See  how  near  I  may  have  been  to  another  sort  of 
life."    Life,  Forster,  vol.  ii.  p.  205. 

*  Of  the  three  pieces  in  the  Bill,  Clari,  or  The  Maid  of  Milan, 
is  a  musical  drama  in  two  acts,  by  John  Howard  Payne.  It  is 
founded  on  the  delights  of  home ;  the  part  of  Clari  was  originally 
taken  by  Miss  Paton  and  Miss  M.Tree.  The  latter  first  brought 
the  song  Home  Sweet  Home  into  its  great  repute. 

The  Married  Bachelor,  or  Master  and  Man,  is  a  farce  in  one  act  by 
P.  P.  O'Callaghan.  Elliston  was  the  original  representative  of  Sir 
Charles,  and  Harley  was  the  lying  valet. 

Was  the  third  item,  /tmateurs  and  Actors,  written  by  Dickens 
himself  ? 

[21] 


Though  the  Beadnells  did  not,  so  far  as  we 
know,  share  in  his  amateur  theatricals,  his 
friend  Kolle  certainly  did.  By  1833 — whether 
before  or  just  after  the  break  with  Maria 
Beadnell  is  not  perfectly  clear  —  Dickens  was 
engaged  in  writing  a  travesty  of  Shakespeare, 
The  O'Tbelb,  which  was  given  privately  by 
his  own  family.  In  the  same  year  he  took  the 
leading  parts  in  the  group  of  plays  named  on 
the  program  inserted  opposite.*  It  is  earlier 
than  any  other  playbill  of  performances  by 
Dickens,  and  shows  that  he  led  all  of  his 
family  and  his  intimates  into  the  work  that 
even  when  he  was  busiest  later  in  life  he  could 
find  time  to  treat  as  play.  Indeed  the  bill  in- 
troduces us  to  a  group  of  friends  in  Dickens' 
youth  not  before  known  to  the  public.    Ap- 

stage  but  as  a  means  of  getting  it ;  gradually  left  off  turning  my 
thoughts  that  way ;  and  never  resumed  the  idea.  I  never  told  you 
this,  did  I  ?  See  how  near  I  may  have  been  to  another  sort  of 
life."    Life,  Forster,  vol.  ii.  p.  205. 

1  Of  the  three  pieces  in  the  Bill,  Clari,  or  The  Maid  of  Milan, 
is  a  musical  drama  in  two  acts,  by  John  Howard  Payne.  It  is 
founded  on  the  delights  of  home ;  the  part  of  Clari  was  originally 
taken  by  Miss  Paton  and  Miss  M.Tree.  The  latter  first  brought 
the  song  Home  Sweet  Home  into  its  great  repute. 

The  Married  Bachelor,  or  Master  and  Man,  is  a  farce  in  one  act  by 
P.  P.  O'Callaghan.  Elliston  was  the  original  representative  of  Sir 
Charles,  and  Harley  was  the  lying  valet. 

Was  the  third  item,  /tmateurs  and  Actors,  written  by  Dickens 
himself  ? 

[21] 


parently  all  of  the  Dickens  family  except  the 
mother  took  part,  for  here  are  the  father,  John 
Dickens,  Miss  [Fanny]  Dickens,  Letitia,  who 
later  married  the  "  Mr.  H.  Austin  "  of  the  cast, 
and  the  two  brothers,  Frederick  and  Augustus. 
Who  John  Urquhart  and  Miss  Urquhart  were 
we  do  not  know,  nor  can  we  with  certainty 
identify  Mr.  Boston,  Mr.  Milton,  and  Miss 
Oppenheim ;  but  E.  Barrow  was  doubtless  a 
cousin.  Dickens  later  went  on  the  Morning 
Chronicle  through  an  uncle  John  Barrow, 
and  the  miniature  previously  referred  to  was 
painted  by  another  member  of  the  family. 
Mr.  R.  Austin  was  probably  a  brother  or 
cousin  of  Henry  Austin. 

Mr.  Bramwell,  who  took  the  part  of  the 
Duke  Vivaldi,  was  a  son  of  George  Bramwell, 
one  of  the  partners  in  the  well-known  firm  of 
bankers,  Dorrien,  Magens,  Dorrien  and  Mello. 
He  afterwards  entered  the  law  profession,  in 
which  he  rose  rapidly,  and  became  a  Judge, 
and  a  Peer  of  the  Realm,  as  Lord  Bramwell. 

This  early  predilection  for  amateur  theat- 
ricals is  particularly  interesting  because  if  one 
overlooks  his  early  and  persistent  passion  for 
the  theatre  one  misses  the  chief  key  to  the 
secret  of  Dickens  as  a  writer.    He  always  saw 

[22] 


Vw 


BIRTHPLACE  OF  CHARLES  DICKENS 

Engraved  for  The  Bibliophile  Society  by  J.  A. 
J.  Wilcox. 


.'kl 

>0 

s. 

N  Urquhari  were 

'ith  certainty 

Mr.  and  Miss 

btless  a 

^^ 
rrow. 


)r 


XODJiW  .1 

rn  of 

;o. 

a,  in 

e  a  Judge, 

a  Bramwell. 

amateur  theat- 

^  because  if  one 

-t  passion  for 

ciiiwi    key  to  the 

He  always  saw 


r^tf? 


1  >  J  J 


> » » > 


,  •  *  « 


life,  even  in  his  maturer  days,  a  little  through 
the  shimmering  haze  of  the  old-fashioned  gas 
footlights  of  the  melodrama  theatres  in  which 
he  had  passed  many  absorbed  and  happy  hours. 
Those  theatres,  and  his  acting  in  some  of  their 
plays,  gave  him  his  love  for  striking  situation, 
for  strong  emotion  created  chiefly  by  horror ; 
his  liking  for  static  character,  rather  than  char- 
acter in  evolution ;  his  love  for  sharp  contrasts, 
particularly  of  gloom  and  mirth  ;  his  fondness 
for  types  and  for  identifying  "  tag  "  speeches. 
It  was  his  informing  humor,  his  genius  for 
characterization  of  certain  figures  derived  from 
his  unusual  knowledge  of  London  life,  that 
transmogrified  melodrama  and  Pierce  Egan 
into  his  highly  individual  but  masterly  pic- 
tures of  his  time. 

What  wonder  that  Maria  Beadnell  found 
this  youth,  richly  endowed  and  too  much  de- 
lighted with  his  sensations  as  a  lover  to  wish 
at  all  to  conceal  his  adoration,  almost  irre- 
sistibly attractive !  What  wonder,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  she  coquetted  with  him  —  for  there 
was  another  side  to  the  shield  I  How  could 
any  worldly-wise  parent  regard  this  youth, 
with  all  his  attractiveness,  as  a  wholly  desirable 
son-in-law?    True,  he  was  handsome,  win- 

[23] 


some,  full  of  promise,  but  he  had  only  the 
assets  of  a  parliamentary  reporter,  and  behind 
him  stood  a  large  family,  at  best  always  in 
straitened  circumstances.  Undoubtedly  there 
was  much  of  the  wilful  coquette  in  Maria 
Beadnell,  for  Dickens  tells  her  in  one  of  his 
second  set  of  letters  that  he  remembers  her 
sister  Anne  writing  to  him  '*  once  (in  answer  to 
some  burst  of  low-spirited  madness  of  mine), 
and  saying,  *  My  dear  Charles,  I  really  cannot 
understand  Maria,  or  venture  to  take  any  re- 
sponsibility of  saying  what  the  state  of  her 
affections  is.'"  As  these  later  letters  show, 
there  was  much  writing  to  and  fro,  and  a  Cor- 
nish family  servant  devoted  to  Maria  played 
nurse  to  this  Romeo  and  Juliet.  There  were 
half-secret  interviews,  also,  in  the  churches 
and  by-lanes  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Lombard  Street  house. 

It  is  more  than  probable  that  some  of  the 
vacillation,  the  unevenness  of  mood,  of  which 
young  Dickens  wrote  bitterly  in  the  first  set  of 
letters,  arose  from  the  young  girl's  struggle 
between  impulse  and  a  sense  of  her  duty 
as  strongly  presented  by  kindly  but  unro- 
mantic  parents.  After  some  impulsive  re- 
sponding to  her  ardent  and  fascinating  wooer, 

[24] 


parental  advice  regained  sway,  or  some  other 
suitor  more  favored  by  her  elders  pleaded  his 
cause,  and  the  girl,  looking  Reason  in  the  face, 
wavered,  and  became  distraite  or  chilling  when 
next  she  met  young  Dickens.  Immediately 
the  nerves  of  this  over-sensitive  youth  were 
aquiver  and  his  imagination  rioted  to  fever 
heat,  with  consequent  hours  of  torturing  self- 
scrutiny  and  rebellion. 

Apparently  there  was  never  any  engage- 
ment, further  than  a  mutually  implied  un- 
derstanding between  the  lovers,  but  in  the 
autumn  of  1831  either  Dickens  showed  an 
amazing  amount  of  assurance,  which  he  cer- 
tainly never  lacked,  or  else  at  the  time  the 
elder  Beadnells  regarded  his  parading  of  his 
admiration  for  Maria  Beadnell  with  amused 
tolerance.  In  no  other  way  can  his  frankness 
in  speaking  of  Miss  Beadnell  in  The  Bill  of 
Fare  be  explained. 

The  following  lines,  although  mediocre  as 
verse,  possess  two  highly  important  qualities : 
they  present  the  first  authentic  literary  effort 
of  Dickens  —  a  feature  in  itself  of  the  great- 
est interest  —  written  some  years  before  the 
Sketches  appeared,  and  they  introduce  us  to 
a  group  of  his  friends  not  mentioned  in  his 

125] 


Letters,  or  even  in  Forster's  Life,  and  give  us 
at  the  same  time  a  means  of  understanding 
the  first  group  of  letters. 

Though  Goldsmith  might  appreciate  the 
compliment  to  his  Retaliation  shown  in  the 
general  plan  of  these  verses,  it  is  painful  to 
think  how  their  labored  measures  would  have 
rasped  upon  the  delicate  sensitiveness  of  his 
ear. 

Mr.  Langton,  in  his  Childhood  and  Youth 
of  Charles  Dickens,  says:  "There  is,  I  fancy, 
internal  evidence  in  some  of  Dickens'  very 
earliest  works,  of  his  having  studied  these 
burlesques  and  travesties  [of  The  Portfolio,  a 
publication  in  vogue  for  some  time  after  1823] 
to  some  purpose.  There  is  still  stronger  evi- 
dence of  this  study,  I  am  told,  in  some  early 
attempts  that  were  never  printed." 

THE  BILL  OF  FARE 

By  Charles  Dickens 

As  the  great  rage  just  now  is  imitation, 
'Mong  high-born  and  low,  throughout  the  whole  Nation, 
1  trust 't  will  excuse  the  few  following  lines. 
Of  which  I  '11  say  nothing,  save  these  very  poor  rhymes, 
As  you  might  expect,  in  degenerate  days 

[26] 


Like  these,  are  entitled  to  no  share  of  praise 

Because  they  are  novel,  —  the  ground  Work,  at  least, 

Is  a  copy  from  Goldsmith's  ever  famed  Feast. 

"  And  a  bad  one  it  is  too,"  —  you  '11  say,  1  fear ; 

But  let  me  entreat  you,  don't  be  too  severe.  — 

If,  in  a  fair  face,  't  will  elicit  a  smile. 

If  one  single  moment 't  will  serve  to  beguile,  — 

I  shall  think  on  it  with  great  satisfaction, 

Et  cet'ra,  —  and  so  forth :  —  now  then  to  action  ! 

Without  further  preface  to  waste  the  time  in, 

We  '11  set  to  at  once,  —  (if  you  please  we  '11  begin.) 

We  '11  say  a  small  party  to  Dinner  are  met. 

And  the  guests  are  themselves  about  to  be  eat ; 

Without  saying  Grace,  —  (I  own  I  'm  a  Sinner, — ) 

We  '11  endeavor  to  see  what  we  've  for  dinner. 

Mr.  Beadnell  's  a  good  fine  sirloin  of  beef, 

Though  to  see  him  cut  up  would  cause  no  small  grief ; 

And  then  Mrs.  Beadnell,  I  think  I  may  name, 

As  being  an  excellent  Rib  of  the  same. 

The  Miss  B's  ^  are  next,  who  it  must  be  confessed 

Are  two  nice  little  Ducks,  and  very  well  dressed. 

William  Moule  's  '^  of  a  trifle,  or  trifling  dish ; 

Mr.  Leigh '  we  all  know  is  a  very  great  fish  ; 

Mrs.  Leigh  a  Curry,  smart,  hot,  and  biting, 

Although  a  dish  that  is  always  inviting. 

For  cooking  our  meat  we  utensils  won't  lack ; 

'  1  Two  only,  because  the  eldest,  Margaret,  of  the  three  had  be- 
come Mrs.  David  Lloyd  in  March,  1831. 

2  William  Moule,  who  Hved  in  Pound  Lane,  Lower  Clapton. 

8  John  Porter  Leigh,  corn-dealer,  who  hved  at  Lea  Bridge  Road, 
Lower  Clapton,  in  1828-33. 

[27] 


So  Miss  Leigh  shall  be  called  a  fine  roasting  Jack,  — 

A  thing  of  great  use,  when  we  dine  or  we  sup, 

A  patent  one  too  !  —  never  wants  winding  up. 

Mr.  Moule  's  a  bottle  of  excellent  Port ; 

Mrs.  Moule  of  Champagne,  —  good  humor 's  her  forte ; 

The  Miss  M's  of  Snipe  are  a  brace,  if  you  please, 

And  Joe  is  a  very  fine  flavored  Dutch-Cheese ; 

Mrs.  Lloyd  and  her  spouse  *  are  a  nice  side  dish, 

(Some  type  of  their  most  happy  state  I  much  wish 

To  produce ;  —  let  me  see,  I  've  found  out  one  soon) 

Of  Honey  and  sweets  in  the  form  of  a  Moon. 

Arthur  Beetham,*  —  this  dish  has  cost  me  some  pains,  — 

Is  a  tongue  with  a  well  made  garnish  of  brains ; 

M'Namara,  I  think,  must  by  the  same  rule 

Be  a  dish  of  excellent  gooseberry-fool ; 

And  Charles  Dickens,  who  in  our  Feast  plays  a  part, 

Is  a  young  Summer  Cabbage,  without  any  heart ;  — 

Not  that  he 's  heartless,  but  because,  as  folks  say, 

He  lost  his,  twelve  months  ago  from  last  May. 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  the  dinner  is  done. 

And  the  guests  have  roll'd  on  the  floor  one  by  one ;  — 

I  don't  mean  to  say  they  're  at  the  completion, 

Trying  the  fam'd  city  cure  for  repletion ; 

Nor  do  I  by  any  means  raise  up  the  question 

Whether  they  owe  their  deaths  to  indigestion. 

We  '11  say  they  're  all  dead ;  it 's  a  terrible  sight. 

But  I  '11  dry  my  tears,  and  their  Epitaphs  write : 

1  David  Lloyd,  a  tea-merchant  of  Wood  Lane,  a  friend  of  Dickens' 
very  early  days.  Dickens  puns  on  their  honeymoon,  spent  in  Paris, 
in  the  spring  of  1831. 

2  A  young  surgeon,  who  lived  in  the  parish  of  All  Hallows,  Lon- 
don Wall.    He  died  in  December,  1834. 

[28] 


Here  lies  Mr.  Beadnell,  beyond  contradiction, 
An  excellent  man,  and  a  good  politician ; 
His  opinions  were  always  sound  and  sincere, 
Come  here !  ye  Reformers,  o'er  him  drop  a  tear : 
Come  here  and  with  me  weep  at  his  sudden  end, 
Ye  who  're  to  ballot  and  freedom  a  friend. 
Come  here,  all  of  ye  who  to  him  ever  listened, 
Praise  one  rare  quality  —  he  was  consistent ; 
And  if  any  one  can  say  so  much  for  you 
We  '11  try  to  write  on  you  an  epitaph  too. 
He  was  most  hospitable,  friendly,  and  kind ; 
An  enemy,  I  'm  sure,  he 's  not  left  behind ; 
And  if  he  be  fairly,  and  all  in  all  ta'en, 
"  We  never  shall  look  upon  his  like  again." 

Here  lies  Mrs.  Beadnell,  whose  conduct  through  life. 

As  a  mother,  a  Woman,  a  friend,  a  Wife, 

I  shall  think,  while  I  possess  recollection, 

Can  be  summ'd  up  in  one  word  —  PERFECTION. 

Her  faults  I  'd  tell  you  beyond  any  doubt. 

But  for  this  plain  reason  —  I  ne'er  found  them  out : 

Her  character  from  my  own  Knowledge  I  tell. 

For  when  living  she  was,  1  then  knew  her  well : 

It  chances  to  've  been  by  the  Fates  brought  about, 

That  she  was  the  means  of  first  bringing  me  out ;  — 

All  my  thanks  for  that  and  her  kindness  since  then 

1  'd  vainly  endeavor  to  tell  with  my  pen : 

1  think  what  I  say,  —  I  feel  it,  that 's  better, 

Or  I  'd  scorn  to  write  of  these  lines  one  letter. 

Excuse  me,  dear  reader,  for  pause  now  I  must ; 
Here  two  charming  Sisters  lie  low  in  the  dust :  — 

[29] 


But  why  should  I  pause  ?  do  they  want  my  poor  aid 

To  tell  of  their  virtues  while  with  us  they  stayed  ? 

Can  a  few  words  from  me  add  a  hundredth  part 

To  the  regret  felt  for  them  in  every  heart  ? 

No,  no  !  't  is  impossible :  still  I  must  try 

To  speak  of  them  here,  for  I  can't  pass  them  by. 

And  first  then  for  Anne  I  '11  my  banner  unfurl  — 

A  truly  delightful  and  sweet  tempered  girl ; 

And,  what 's  very  odd,  and  will  add  to  her  fame, 

Is  this  one  plain  fact,  —  she  was  always  the  same. 

She  was  witty,  clever,  —  you  liked  what  she  said ; 

Without  being  Hue,  she  was  very  well  read. 

Her  favorite  Author,  or  else  I  'm  a  fibber. 

And  have  been  deceived,  was  the  famed  Colley »  Gibber. 

I  don't  think,  dear  reader,  't  will  interest  you, 

But  still,  if  you  please,  keep  that  quite  entre  nous. 

I  grow  tedious,  so  of  her  1  '11  not  din  more,  — 

Oh !  —  she  sometimes  drest  her  hair  d  la  Cbinois. 

Ladies,  if  you  want  this  fashion  to  follow. 

And  don't  know  where  you  the  pattern  can  borrow, 

Don't  look  in  "  the  fashions  "  'mong  bows  and  wreathings, 

You  '11  find  it  on  any  antique  China  Tea  things. 

But  who  have  we  here  ?  alas  what  sight  is  this  ! 

Has  her  spirit  flown  back  to  regions  of  bliss  ? 

Has  Maria  left  this  World  of  trouble  and  care 

Because  for  us  she  was  too  good  and  too  fair  ? 

Has  Heaven  in  its  jealousy  ta'en  her  away 

As  a  blessing  too  great  for  us  children  of  clay  ? 

All  ye  fair  and  beautiful,  sadly  come  here, 

1  Dickens  puns  on  the  name  of  his  friend  Kolle,  later  married 
to  Anne  Beadnell, —  in  1833. 

[30] 


And  Spring's  early  flowers  strew  over  her  bier ; 

Fit  emblems  are  they  of  life's  short  fleeting  day, 

Fit  tributes  are  they  to  her  memory  to  pay  ; 

For  though  blooming  now,  they  will  soon  be  decayed, 

They  blossom  one  moment,  then  wither  and  fade. 

I  linger  here  now,  and  I  hardly  know  why, 

1  've  no  wish,  no  hope  now,  but  this  one,  — to  die. 

My  bright  hopes  and  fond  wishes  were  all  centred  here  — 

Their  brightness  has  vanished,  they're  now  dark  and 

drear. 
The  impression  that  Memory  engraves  in  my  heart 
Is  all  I  have  left,  and  with  that  I  ne'er  part. 
I  might  tell  you  much,  and  I  say  't  with  a  sigh, 
Of  the  grace  of  her  form,  and  the  glance  of  her  eye ; 
I  might  tell  of  happy  days  now  pass'd  away. 
Which  I  fondly  hoped  then  would  never  decay. 
But 't  were  useless  —  I  should  only  those  times  deplore, 
I  know  that  again  I  can  see  them  no  more.^ 
But  what 's  this  small  form  that  she  folds  to  her  breast, 
As  if  it  had  only  laid  down  there  to  rest  ? 
Poor  thing  is  it  living  ?  —  Ah  no,  it 's  dead  quite ; 
It  is  a  small  dog,  liver-colored  and  white.^ 
Dear  me,  now  I  see  —  't  is  the  little  dog  that 
Would  eat  mutton  chops  if  you  cut  off  the  fat.  \ 

So  very  happy  was  its  situation, 
An  object  it  was  of  such  admiration, 
That  I  'd  resign  all  my  natural  graces. 
E'en  now  if  I  could  with  '*  Daphne  "  change  places. 

1  Little  did  Dickens  dream  at  the  time  of  writing  this  how  accur- 
ately he  was  foretelling  his  future. 
*  Dora's  pet  dog,  Jip. 

[311 


William  Moule  next,  alas,  with  the  dead  lieth  here, 

And  his  loss  we  shall  ne'er  recover  I  fear ; 

No  more  shall  the  young  men,  among  whom  am  I, 

Regard  with  great  envy  his  elegant  tie ; 

No  more  shall  the  girls  with  anxiety  wait 

At  a  party,  and  mourn  that  he  came  in  late  ; 

Though  it  was  not  his  fault,  it  must  be  confess'd 

We  knew  very  well  that  he  lived  "  in  the  West  "  * 

And  men  of  great  fashion  now  never  go  out, 

Till  long  after  twelve  when  engaged  to  a  rout. 

No  more  shall  he  waltz  an  hour  with  one  lady, 

To  the  delight  of  his  tut'ress  Miss  A.  B. 

Who  no  more  shall  turn  to  me,  and  whispering  low. 

Say  "  Does  n't  he  waltz  well  ?  I  taught  him,  you  know." 

No  more  shall  he  curse  all  the  City  Folks'  Balls, 

And  vow  that  he  never  will  honor  their  halls ; 

No  more  from  "  the  London  "  will  he  be  turned  back 

Because  of  his  wearing  a  Kerchief  of  Black ; 

No  more  when  we  sit  round  the  blithe  supper  table 

Shall  he  hush  to  silence  the  prattling  Babel, 

By,  —  When  a  lady  a  speech  made  upon  her,  — 

Rising  to  return  us  her  thanks  for  the  honor. 

No  more,  —  But  1  think  1  '11  use  that  phrase  no  more, 

I  feel  that  I  can't  this  loss  enough  deplore. 

Momus  and  Bacchus,  both  be  merry  no  more, 
Your  friend  Mr.  Leigh  now  lies  dead  on  the  floor. 
Weep  both  of  ye  ;  each  hide  your  sorrowful  head, 
For  he  isn't  dead  drunk,  but  he 's  really  dead. 
We  shall  never  again  see  his  good  humored  face, 

1  The  purlieus  of  Tottenham  Court  Road.    [In  original.] 

[32] 


We  shall  never  again  much  admire  the  grace 

With  which  he  would  drink  off  his  bottle  of  Wine, 

Or  with  which  he  'd  ask  you  next  Sunday  to  dine. 

We  shall  never  again  laugh  aloud  at  his  fun, 

We  shall  never  in  turn  amuse  him  with  a  pun. 

In  his  Will  i  hope  as  a  Legacy  that 

He 's  left  me  that  elegant,  pretty,  dress  hat. 

The  Shape,  make,  and  color  of  which  were  so  rare, 

And  which  on  all  extra  occasions  he  'd  Wear. 

I  really  do  his  loss  most  deeply  regret, 

As  the  kindest  best  temper'd  man  I  e'er  met. 

I  'm  as  hale  and  as  hearty  as  any  one  here. 

So  I  '11  help  to  carry  him  to  his  new  bier. 

Mrs.  Leigh's  life,  alas,  has  come  to  an  end ;  — 

But  I  can't  speak  of  her  I  fear  to  offend  ; 

I  don't  think  the  truth  need  her  feelings  much  gall. 

But  if  I  can't  tell  it  I  won't  write  at  all. 

If  't  were  not  for  the  lesson  that  I  've  been  taught 

I'd  have  painted  her  as  in  justice  I  ought ; 

I  'd  have  said  she  was  friendly,  good  hearted,  and  kind, 

Her  wit  I  'd  have  praised  and  intelligent  mind ; 

'Bout  scandal  or  spreading  reports  without  heed. 

Of  course  I  'd  say  nothing,  how  could  I  indeed  ? 

Because  if  I  did  I  should  certainly  lie, 

And  my  remarks  here  doubtless  would  not  apply  ; 

So  as  I  fear  either  to  praise  or  to  blame, 

I  will  not  her  faults  or  her  virtues  here  name. 

And  Mary  Anne  Leigh's  death  1  much  regret  too, 
Though  the  greatest  tormentor  that  I  e'er  knew ; 
Whenever  she  met  you,  at  morn,  noon,  or  night, 

[33] 


To  tease  and  torment  you  was  her  chief  delight ; 
To  each  glance  or  smile  she  'd  a  meaning  apply, 
On  every  flirtation  she  kept  a  sharp  eye. 
Though  —  tender  feelings  I  trust  I  'm  not  hurting,  — 
She  ne'er  herself  much  objected  to  flirting.^ 
She  to  each  little  secret  always  held  the  candle. 
And  1  think  she  liked  a  small  bit  of  scandal. 
I  think,  too,  that  she  used  to  dress  her  hair  well, 
Although  Arthur  said,  —  but  that  tale  I  won't  tell. 
In  short  though  she  was  so  terribly  teasing. 
So  pretty  she  looked,  her  ways  were  so  pleasing. 
That  when  she  had  finished  I  used  to  remain 
Half  fearing,  half  hoping  to  be  teased  again. 

Here  lies  —  Mr.  Moule,  at  whose  plentiful  board 
We  often  have  sat,  and  where,  with  one  accord. 
Mirth,  pleasure,  good  humor  and  capital  Wine, 
Seem'd  always  to  meet  when  one  went  there  to  dine. 
To  his  friends  he  was  always  good  humored  and  kind, 
And  a  much  better  host 't  would  be  hard  to  find. 
If  he  for  an  instant  his  good  humor  missed 
I  've  heard  it  would  be  at  a  rubber  of  Whist ; 
At  least  1  've  sometimes  heard  his  Partners  say  so ; 
Though  of  course  I  myself  this  fact  cannot  know. 
His  hospitality  deserved  great  credit ; 
Indeed  I  much  wish  all  men  did  inherit 
That  merit  from  him ;  I  'm  sure  it  is  needed 
That  some  should  prize  it  as  highly  as  he  did. 
I  think  his  opinions  were  not  always  quite 
So  kind  or  so  just  as  they  should  be  of  right. 

1  A  singular  fact.    [This  note  is  in  original.] 

[34] 


However,  that  question  I  '11  not  travel  through, 
'T  would  not  I  think  become  me  so  to  do. 
Some  others  in  this  point  like  him  we  may  see, 
So  I  will  say  requiescat  in  pace. 

Mrs.  Moule,  alas,  lieth  here  with  the  dead, 
Her  good  temper  vanished,  her  light  spirits  fled ; 
I  'd  say  much  of  her,  but  all  knew  her  too  well 
To  leave  anything  new  for  me  here  to  tell ; 
So  I  '11  only  say,  —  in  thus  speaking  of  her 
I  'm  sure  all  she  e'er  knew  will  concur  — 
If  kindness  and  temper  as  virtues  are  held 
She  never  by  any  one  yet  was  excelled. 

Louisa  Moule 's  next,  —  I  can't  better  call  her 

Than  the  same  pattern,  —  N.  B.  a  size  smaller. 

Here  lies  Fanny  Moule,  of  whom  't  may  be  said, 

That  romance  or  sentiment  quite  turned  her  head. 

Her  chief  pleasure  was,  I  cannot  tell  why 

To  sit  by  herself  in  a  corner  and  sigh. 

You  might  talk  for  an  hour  to  her,  thinking  she  heard. 

And  find  out  at  last  she  had  not  heard  a  word ; 

She  'd  start,  turn  her  head,  —  the  case  was  a  hard  one,  - 

And  say  with  a  sigh,  *'  Dear !  I  beg  your  pardon." 

Whether  this  arose  from  love,  doubt,  hesitation. 

Or  whether  indeed,  't  was  all  affectation, 

I  will  not  by  my  own  decision  abide, 

I  '11  leave  it  to  others  the  point  to  decide. 

Thus  much  though,  I  will  say,  —  1  think  it  is  droll. 

That  one  who  so  pleasing  might  be  on  the  whole 

Should  take  so  much  trouble,  it  must  be  a  toil, 

All  her  charms  and  graces  entirely  to  spoil. 

[35] 


Here  lies  honest  Joe,  and  1  'm  sure  when  I  say 

That  he  'd  a  good  heart,  there's  no  one  will  say  nay. 

The  themes,  of  all  others  on  which  he  would  doat 

Were  splendid  gold  lace  and  a  flaming  red  coat ; 

His  mind  always  ran  on  battles  and  slaughters. 

Guards,  Bands,  Kettledrums  and  splendid  Head  Quarters. 

I  've  heard  that  the  best  bait  to  catch  a  young  girl 

Is  a  red  coat  and  a  moustachio's  curl ; 

Bait  your  hook  but  with  this,  and  Joe  would  soon  bite  ; 

Hint  at  it,  he  'd  talk  on  from  morning  to  night. 

In  portraits  of  Soldiers  he  spent  all  his  hoard  ; 

You  talked  of  a  penknife  —  he  thought  of  a  sword. 

Inspecting  accounts  he  ne'er  could  get  through ; 

His  mind  would  revert  to  some  former  review. 

He  ne'er  made  a  bill  out  smaller  or  larger 

But  he  thought  he  was  then  mounting  his  charger. 

He  ne'er  to  the  counting  house  trudged  in  a  heat 

But  he  thought  oi  forced  marches  and  a  retreat ; 

And  ne'er  from  the  play  to  his  home  went  again 

But  trembling  he  thought  of  the  roll  call  at  Ten. 

But  fallen  at  last  is  this  "  gay  young  deceiver," 

A  prey  to  Death  and  a  bad  Scarlet  fever. 

Here  lies  Mrs.  Lloyd,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
That  she  too  from  us  is  so  soon  snatched  away ; 
That  her  fate  is  most  hard  it  can't  be  denied, 
When  we  think  how  recently  she  was  a  bride. 
That  she  became  one  is  no  source  of  surprise, 
For  if  all  that 's  charming  in  critical  eyes 
Is  likely  to  finish  a  dull  single  life 
I  'm  sure  that  she  ought  t've  been  long  since  a  wife. 
Though  we  lament  one  so  pleasing,  so  witty, 

[36] 


And  though  her  death  we  may  think  a  great  pitty, 

I  really  myself  do  quite  envy  her  fate, 

And  I  wish  when  with  Death  1  've  my  tete  a  tSte, 

He  'd  do  me  the  favor  to  take  me  away 

When  my  prospects  here  were  bright,  blooming  and  gay, 

When  I  'm  quite  happy,  ere  with  sorrows  jaded, 

I  wish  for  my  grave  when  my  hopes  are  faded,  — 

When  I  might  be  certain  of  leaving  behind 

Those  who  would  ne'er  cease  to  bear  me  in  mind. 

She 's  gone  and  who  shall  now  those  sweet  ballads  sing 

Which  still  in  my  ears  so  delightfully  ring  ? 

"  We  met,"  **  Friends  depart,"  —  I  those  sweet  sounds 

retain. 
And  I  feel  I  shall  never  forget  them  again. 

And  down  here  Mr.  Lloyd's  remains  lie  beside 
Those  of  his  so  recently  blooming  young  bride. 
I  'm  sorry  he 's  dead,  for  I  knew  him  to  be 
Good  humored,  most  honest,  kind  hearted  and  free. 
That  he  was  consistent,  I  ne'er  had  a  doubt. 
Although  scandal  said,  and  't  was  whispered  about. 
That  when  he  last  summer  from  Paris  came  home 
(I  think  't  was  his  marriage  induced  him  to  roam) 
He  his  principles  changed, — so  runs  the  story, 
Threw  off  the  Whigs,  and  became  a  staunch  Tory. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  I  think  it 's  but  fair, 
To  say  that  I  know  that  he  enjoyed  the  fresh  air. 

And  is  Arthur  Beetham  for  the  first  time  hush'd  > 
And  has  he  returned  to  his  original  dust  ? 
Has  he  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh  with  the  rest, 

[37] 


And  in  spite  of  the  great  care  he  took  of  his  Chest,^ 
At  our  snug  coteries  will  he  never  make  one  ? 
Will  he  never  again  gladden  us  with  his  fun  ? 
Poor  fellow  !  1  fear,  now  he 's  laid  in  the  earth, 
That  of  our  amusement  we  '11  all  find  a  dearth ; 
And  yet  he  'd  his  faults,  —  to  speak  without  joking, 
He  had  a  knack  of  being  very  provoking ; 
So  much  so  that  several  times  t'  other  day 
I  devoutly,  heartily,  wished  him  away ; 
But  after  I  'd  done  so,  my  Conscience  me  smote  — 
And  here  perhaps  a  couple  of  lines  I  may  quote  — 
Missing  his  mirth  and  agreeable  vein, 
1  directly  wished  him  back  again. 

And  does  M'Namara  with  the  dead  recline  ? 

Poor  Francis,  his  waistcoats  were  wond'rously  fine ; 

He  certainly  was  an  elegant  fellow. 

His  coats  were  well  made,  his  gloves  a  bright  yellow ; 

Florists  shall  hold  up  his  Pall  by  the  corners, 

Morgan''  and  Watkins'  shall  be  his  chief  mourners. 

Last,  here  's  Charles  Dickens  who 's  now  gone  for  ever ; 
It 's  clear  that  he  thought  himself  very  clever ; 
To  all  his  friends'  faults  —  it  almost  makes  me  weep. 
He  was  wide  awake  —  to  his  own  fast  asleep. 
Though  blame  he  deserves  for  such  wilful  blindness, 
He  had  one  merit  —  he  ne'er  forgot  kindness. 

1  The  reason  assig^ied  by  Mr.  A.  B.  for  constantly  wearing  his 
coat  buttoned  up  to  his  chin  was  his  extreme  anxiety  to  preserve 
his  chest  from  cold.     [This  note  is  in  original.] 

2  A  celebrated  glove-maker.    [This  note  is  in  original.] 
8  A  celebrated  Tailor.    [This  note  is  in  original.] 

[38] 


Perhaps  I  don't  do  right  to  call  that  a  merit 

Which  each  human  creature  's  bound  to  inherit ; 

But  when  old  Death  claimed  the  debt  that  he  owed  him, 

He  felt  most  grateful  for  all  that  was  showed  him. 

His  faults,  —  and  they  were  not  in  number  few. 

As  all  his  acquaintance  extremely  well  knew, 

Emanated,  —  to  speak  of  him  in  good  part  — 

I  think  rather  more  from  the  head  than  the  heart. 

His  death  was  n't  sudden,  he  had  long  been  ill,  — 

Slowly  he  languished  and  got  worse,  until 

No  mortal  means  could  the  poor  young  fellow  save, 

And  a  sweet  pair  of  eyes  sent  him  home  to  his  grave. 

There  is  much  of  the  character  of  Dickens 
in  these  lines,  in  the  veiled  impudence  toward 
Mrs.  Leigh,  in  his  flattery  of  Mrs.  Beadnell, 
in  the  swift  turn  to  serious  sentimentality  in 
the  last  few  lines,  in  the  reprimand  given  Fanny 
Moule.  They  were  evidently  written  in  the 
autumn  of  1831 ;  for  Dickens,  in  speaking  of 
David  Lloyd,  mentions  his  visit  to  Paris  "  last 
summer "  and  "  his  marriage  "  as  the  occasion. 
The  Lloyds  —  they  were  married  in  April, 
1831  —  passed  their  honeymoon  in  Paris. 

As  to  Maria  Beadnell,  he  wrote  much  more 
effectively  of  the  "  grace  of  her  form  and  the 
glance  of  her  eye  "  when  he  gave  her  to  pos- 
terity as  Dora.  Between  the  autumn  of  I831 
and  the  letters  of  1833,  Miss  Beadnell  was  sent 

[39] 


to  Paris  for  "  finishing  oflf,"  as  the  common- 
place old  phrase  went.  Or  was  the  real  reason 
the  aroused  fears  of  the  elder  Beadnells  that 
this  fascinating  but  penniless  young  Dickens 
might  actually  win  for  good  and  all  the  heart 
of  their  daughter?  Whatever  the  cause  of 
her  absence,  during  it  Dickens  nursed  his  love 
till  it  became  infatuation.  To  him,  full  of 
unqualified  devotion,  the  girl  on  her  return 
seemed  changeable  and  distant,  yet  ready  to 
keep  him  dangling  as  an  offset  to  other  lovers. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  —  her 
instability  of  mood,  her  unsureness  as  to  her 
exact  feelings,  or  a  sense  of  duty  to  her  par- 
ents,—  she  wrung  the  young  fellow's  heart. 
It  was  Maria  Beadnell  who  taught  Dickens  to 
understand  the  bewildered  wretchedness  of 
Pip  in  his  love  aifair,  in  Great  Expectations. 
Pip  said  of  Estella :  — 

"  She  made  use  of  me  to  tease  other  admir- 
ers, and  she  turned  the  very  familiarity  be- 
tween herself  and  me  to  the  account  of  putting 
a  constant  slight  on  my  devotion  to  her.  If  I 
had  been  her  secretary,  steward,  half-brother, 
poor  relation  —  if  I  had  been  a  younger  brother 
of  her  appointed  husband  —  I  could  not  have 
seemed   to    myself  further  from    my  hopes 

[40] 


when  I  was  nearest  to  her.  The  privilege  of 
calling  her  by  her  name  and  hearing  her  call 
me  by  mine,  became  under  the  circumstances 
an  aggravation  of  my  trials ;  and  while  I  think 
it  likely  that  it  almost  maddened  her  other 
lovers,  I  knew  too  certainly  that  it  almost 
maddened  me.  She  had  admirers  without 
end.  .  .  .  There  were  picnics,  fete  days,  plays, 
operas,  concerts,  parties,  all  sorts  of  pleasures, 
through  which  I  pursued  her  —  and  they  were 
all  miseries  to  me.  I  never  had  one  hour's 
happiness  in  her  society,  and  yet  my  mind,  all 
round  the  four-and-twenty  hours,  was  harping 
on  the  happiness  of  having  her  with  me  unto 
death." 

Compare  with  the  foregoing  this  passage 
from  the  first  of  the  letters  to  follow:  — 

"Thank  God  I  can  claim  for  myself  and 
feel  that  I  deserve  the  merit  of  having  ever 
throughout  our  intercourse  acted  fairly,  in- 
telligibly and  honorably.  Under  kindness  and 
encouragement  one  day  and  a  total  change  of 
conduct  the  next  I  have  ever  been  the  same.  I 
have  ever  acted  without  reserve.  I  have  never 
held  out  encouragement  which  I  knew  I  never 
meant;  I  have  never  indirectly  sanctioned 
hopes  which  I  well  knew  I  did  not  intend  to 

[41] 


fulfil ;  I  have  never  made  a  mock  confidante 
to  whom  to  entrust  a  garbled  story  for  my 
own  purposes,  and  I  think  I  never  should 
(though  God  knows  I  am  not  likely  to  have 
the  opportunity)  encourage  one  dangler  as  a 
useful  shield  for  —  an  excellent  set  off  against 
—  others  more  fortunate  and  doubtless  more 
deserving." 

At  the  date  of  these  verses  Dickens  had  not, 
apparently,  come  to  distrust  **  Mary  Anne " 
Leigh,  or,  as  he  calls  her  later  in  his  letters  — 
the  change  probably  originated  with  her  — 
Marianne  Leigh.    The  tone  of — 

So  pretty  she  looked,  her  ways  were  so  pleasing, 
That  when  she  had  finished  I  used  to  remain 
Half  fearing,  half  hoping  to  be  teased  again  — 

is  very  diflferent  from  the  biting  sarcasm  of 
his  letter  to  her  in  18^3. 

The  very  qualities  in  her  that  Dickens  had 
censured  in  the  following  lines  ultimately 
brought  about  the  catastrophe  in  this  love 
affair :  — 

Whenever  she  met  you,  at  morn,  noon,  or  night. 
To  tease  and  torment  you  was  her  chief  delight ; 
To  each  glance  or  smile  she  'd  a  meaning  apply, 
On  every  flirtation  she  kept  a  sharp  eye. 

[42] 


Though  —  tender  feelings  I  trust  I  'm  not  hurting,  — 
She  ne'er  herself  much  objected  to  flirting. 
She  to  each  little  secret  always  held  the  candle, 
And  I  think  she  liked  a  small  bit  of  scandal. 

Mary  Anne  Leigh  stopped  at  nothing  to 
embroil  the  lovers.  Possessed  of  personal  at- 
tractions and  a  lively  wit,  she  had  inherited  in 
marked  degree  the  bad  qualities  of  her  mother 
and  was  a  born  mischief-maker.  It  looks  as  if, 
being  herself  in  love  with  Dickens,  she  made 
use  of  all  around  her,  even  his  sister  Fanny, 
to  bring  misunderstandings  between  the  lovers. 
She  told  Maria  Beadnell  that  all  the  stages  of 
the  love  affair  had  been  confided  to  her.  Evi- 
dently she  wished  to  imply  that  this  was  a 
mark  of  the  deeper  confidence  and  possibly 
affection  which  Dickens  felt  for  her.  Certainly 
the  letters  show  that  she  brought  matters  to 
such  a  pass  that  Miss  Beadnell  had  to  choose 
between  the  word  of  her  friend  and  that  of  her 
lover.  When  she  showed  that  she  would  not 
entirely  throw  over  Miss  Leigh,  young  Dickens, 
outraged  by  her  vacillation,  by  the  consequent 
bickerings,  and,  above  all,  by  her  failure  com- 
pletely to  accept  his  straightforward  statement 
of  his  real  relations  with  Miss  Leigh,  broke  off 
the  already  strained  relationship. 

[43] 


All  of  Miss  Beadnell's  letters  to  Dickens 
have  disappeared  —  perhaps  they  perished  in 
the  epistolary  holocaust  of  i860,  already  men- 
tioned. Of  his  letters  to  her  only  the  follow- 
ing five  survive.  In  exasperation  at  what  has 
passed  he  writes  a  touchingly  boyish  set  of 
letters,  in  which  his  misery  of  mind  breaks 
through  the  sentences  which  try  to  be  dig- 
nified and  restrained.  But  not  even  his  misery 
sweeps  him  out  of  the  self-pity  and  self-con- 
sciousness that  were  throughout  his  life  char- 
acteristic. One  feels,  in  reading  these  letters, 
that  however  well  the  manly  air  was  main- 
tained by  the  somewhat  stilted  phrases,  it 
concealed  bitter  heart-burnings  and  tempests 
of  outraged  Dride  as  well  as  deeply  wounded 
affection. 

The  somewhat  loose  phrasing,  the  punctu- 
ation, often  most  conspicuous  for  its  absence 
in  the  originals,  probably  result  more  from  the 
great  excitement  of  the  youth  as  he  wrote 
than  from  his  inexperience  as  an  author.  Yet 
both  are  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  skilled 
phrase  and  the  adequate  punctuation  of  the 
second  set  of  letters. 

Unfortunately,  the  first  set  of  letters  is  not 
dated ;  consequently  it  is  nearly  impossible  to 

[44] 


be  sure  what  is  their  correct  order,  for  their 
contents  permit  them  to  be  arranged  in  more 
than  one  way. 

Miss  Hogarth  in  the  Letters  said  of  the  early 
correspondence:  "He  had  a  careless  habit  in 
those  days  about  dating  his  letters,  very  fre- 
quently putting  only  the  day  of  the  week  on 
which  he  wrote,  curiously  in  contrast  with  the 
habit  of  his  later  life,  when  his  dates  were 
always  of  the  very  fullest." 

18  Bentinck  Street,! 
March  tSth 

Dear  Miss  Beadnell,  —  Your  own  feelings  will  en- 
able you  to  imagine  far  better  than  any  attempt  of  mine 
to  describe  the  painful  struggle  it  has  cost  me  to  make 
up  my  mind  to  adopt  the  course  which  1  now  take  —  a 
course  than  which  nothing  can  be  so  directly  opposed  to 
my  wishes  and  feelings,  but  the  necessity  of  which  be- 
comes daily  more  apparent  to  me.  Our  meetings  of  late 
have  been  little  more  than  so  many  displays  of  heartless 
indifference  on  the  one  hand,  while  on  the  other  they 
have  never  failed  to  prove  a  fertile  source  of  wretchedness 
and  misery ;  and  seeing,  as  1  cannot  fail  to  do,  that  I  have 
engaged  in  a  pursuit  which  has  long  since  been  worse  than 

1  The  paper  of  this  letter  is  watermarked,  "  G.  H.  Green,  1831." 
But  the  text  of  this  and  the  succeeding  letters  show  that  this  was 
written  in  March,  1833.  This  letter  is  a  copy  in  Maria  Beadnell's 
handwriting,  the  original  having  been  returned  by  her  to  Dickens, 
as  stated  in  his  letter  at  page  52,  infra. 

[45] 


hopeless  and  a  further  perseverance  in  which  can  only 
expose  me  to  deserved  ridicule,  1  have  made  up  my 
mind  to  return  the  little  present  I  received  from  you 
sometime  since  (which  1  have  always  prized,  as  1  still  do, 
far  beyond  anything  I  ever  possessed)  and  the  other 
enclosed  mementos  of  our  past  correspondence  which 
I  am  sure  it  must  be  gratifying  to  you  to  receive,  as  after 
our  recent  relative  situations  they  are  certainly  better 
adapted  for  your  custody  than  mine. 

Need  I  say  that  I  have  not  the  most  remote  idea  of 
hurting  your  feelings  by  the  few  lines  which  I  think  it 
necessary  to  write  with  the  accompanying  little  parcel  ? 
I  must  be  the  last  person  in  the  world  who  could  entertain 
such  an  intention,  but  I  feel  that  this  is  neither  a  matter 
nor  a  time  for  cold,  deliberate,  calculating  trifling.  My 
feelings  upon  any  subject,  more  especially  upon  this,  must 
be  to  you  a  matter  of  very  little  moment ;  still  /  have  feel- 
ings in  common  with  other  people,  —  perhaps  as  far  as 
they  relate  to  you  they  have  been  as  strong  and  as  good 
as  ever  warmed  the  human  heart,  —  and  I  do  feel  that  it 
is  mean  and  contemptible  of  me  to  keep  by  me  one  gift  of 
yours  or  to  preserve  one  single  line  or  word  of  remem- 
brance  or  affection  from  you,  I  therefore  return  them, 
and  I  can  only  wish  that  I  could  as  easily  forget  that  1 
ever  received  them. 

I  have  but  one  more  word  to  say  and  I  say  it  in  my 
own  vindication.  The  result  of  our  past  acquaintance  is 
indeed  a  melancholy  one  to  me.  1  have  felt  too  long 
ever  to  lose  the  feeling  of  utter  desolation  and  wretched- 
ness which  has  succeeded  our  former  correspondence. 
Thank  God  I  can  claim  for  myself  znd  feel  that  1  deserve 

[46] 


1 


-^'.  ^  Vi  ^ 


-1        V        , 


1 


:K  1 


V; 


the  merit  of  having  ever  throughout  our  intercourse  acted 
fairly,  intelligibly  and  honorably.  Under  kindness  and 
encouragement  one  day  and  a  total  change  of  conduct 
the  next  I  have  ever  been  the  same.  1  have  ever  acted 
without  reserve.  1  have  never  held  out  encouragement 
which  I  knew  I  never  meant;  I  have  never  indirectly 
sanctioned  hopes  which  I  well  knew  I  did  not  intend  to 
fulfil.  1  have  never  made  a  mock  confidante  to  whom 
to  entrust  a  garbled  story  for  my  own  purposes,  and  I 
think  I  never  should  (though  God  knows  I  am  not  likely 
to  have  the  opportunity)  encourage  one  dangler  as  a  use- 
ful shield  for  —  an  excellent  set  off  against  —  others  more 
fortunate  and  doubtless  more  deserving.  I  have  done 
nothing  that  I  could  say  would  be  very  likely  to  hurt 
you.  If  (I  can  hardly  believe  it  possible)  I  have  said 
any  thing  which  can  have  that  effect  I  can  only  ask  you 
to  place  yourself  for  a  moment  in  my  situation,  and  you 
will  find  a  much  better  excuse  than  I  can  possibly  devise. 
A  wish  for  your  happiness  altho'  it  comes  from  me  may 
not  be  the  worse  for  being  sincere  and  heartfelt.  Accept 
it  as  it  is  meant,  and  believe  that  nothing  will  ever  afford 
me  more  real  delight  than  to  hear  that  you,  the  object 
of  my  first  and  my  last  love  are  happy.  If  you  are  as 
happy  as  I  hope  you  may  be,  you  will  indeed  possess 
every  blessing  that  this  world  can  afford. 

CD. 

Miss  Maria  Beadnell 

The  following  letter  is  undated,  and  its  paper 
has  no  watermark.  Yet  it  would  appear  from 
its  contents  that  it  just  preceded  those  which 

[471 


the  merit  of  having  ever  throughout  our  intercourse  acted 
fairly,  intelligibly  and  honorably.  Under  kindness  and 
encouragement  one  day  and  a  total  change  of  conduct 
the  next  I  have  ever  been  the  same.  1  have  ever  acted 
without  reserve.  1  have  never  held  out  encouragement 
which  I  knew  I  never  meant;  I  have  never  indirectly 
sanctioned  hopes  which  I  well  knew  I  did  not  intend  to 
fulfil.  I  have  never  made  a  mock  confidante  to  whom 
to  entrust  a  garbled  story  for  my  own  purposes,  and  I 
think  I  never  should  (though  God  knows  I  am  not  likely 
to  have  the  opportunity)  encourage  one  dangler  as  a  use- 
ful shield  for  —  an  excellent  set  off  against  —  others  more 
fortunate  and  doubtless  more  deserving.  I  have  done 
nothing  that  I  could  say  would  be  very  likely  to  hurt 
you.  If  (I  can  hardly  believe  it  possible)  I  have  said 
any  thing  which  can  have  that  effect  I  can  only  ask  you 
to  place  yourself  for  a  moment  in  my  situation,  and  you 
will  find  a  much  better  excuse  than  I  can  possibly  devise. 
A  wish  for  your  happiness  altho'  it  comes  from  me  may 
not  be  the  worse  for  being  sincere  and  heartfelt.  Accept 
it  as  it  is  meant,  and  believe  that  nothing  will  ever  afford 
me  more  real  delight  than  to  hear  that  you,  the  object 
of  my  first  and  my  last  love  are  happy.  If  you  are  as 
happy  as  I  hope  you  may  be,  you  will  indeed  possess 
every  blessing  that  this  world  can  afford. 

CD. 

Miss  Maria  Beadnell 

The  following  letter  is  undated,  and  its  paper 
has  no  watermark.  Yet  it  would  appear  from 
its  contents  that  it  just  preceded  those  which 

[47] 


are  printed  after  it.  Indeed,  it  looks  as  if  the 
remaining  five  letters  were  all  written  during 
the  week  preceding  that  of  May  21,  183^, 
when  Anne  Beadnell  was  married  to  Henry 
Kolle.  It  is  of  Kolle's  honeymoon  that  young 
Dickens  is  thinking  when  in  the  last  letter  of 
this  series  he  says,  "  Knowing  that  the  oppor- 
tunity of  addressing  you  through  Kolle  will 
shortly  be  lost." 

There  had  now  been  a  breach  lasting  per- 
haps two  months:  — 

I  do  feel,  Miss  Beadnell,  after  my  former  note  to  you 
that  common  delicacy  and  a  proper  feeling  of  consider- 
ation alike  require  that  I  should  without  a  moment's 
delay  inform  you  (as  1  did  verbally  yesterday)  that  I  never, 
by  word  or  deed,  in  the  slightest  manner,  directly  or  by 
implication,  made  in  any  way  a  confidante  of  Mary 
Anne  Leigh,  and  never  was  I  more  surprised,  never  did 
I  endure  more  heartfelt  annoyance  and  vexation  than  to 
hear  yesterday  by  chance  that  days  even  weeks  ago  she 
had  made  this  observation  —  not  having  the  slightest 
idea  that  she  had  done  so  of  course  it  was  out  of  my 
power  to  contradict  it  before.  Situated  as  we  have  been 
once  I  have  —  laying  out  of  consideration  every  idea  of 
common  honour  not  to  say  common  honesty  —  too  often 
thought  of  our  earlier  correspondence,  and  too  often 
looked  back  to  happy  hopes  the  loss  of  which  have 
made  me  the  miserable  reckless  wretch  I  am,  to  breathe 
the  slightest  hint  to  any  creature  living  of  one  single 

[48] 


circumstance  that  ever  passed  between  us  —  much  less 
to  her. 

In  replying  to  your  last  note  I  denied  Mary  Anne 
Leigh's  interference,  and  I  did  so  hoping  to  spare  you  the 
pain  of  any  recrimination  with  her.  Her  duplicity  and 
disgusting  falsehood,  however,  renders  it  quite  unneces- 
sary to  conceal  the  part  she  has  acted,  and  I  therefore 
have  nov/  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  she,  quite  unasked, 
volunteered  the  information  that  YOU  had  made  her  a 
confidante  of  all  that  had  ever  passed  between  us  with- 
out reserve.  In  proof  of  which  assertion  she  not  only  de- 
tailed facts  which  I  undoubtedly  thought  she  could  have 
heard  from  none  but  yourself,  but  she  also  communicated 
many  things  which  certainly  never  occurred  at  all,  equally 
calculated  to  excite  something  even  more  than  ordinary 
angry  feelings. 

On  hearing  this  yesterday  (and  no  consideration  on 
earth  shall  induce  me  ever  to  forget  or  forgive  Fanny's  * 
not  telling  me  of  it  before)  my  first  impulse  was  to  go  to 
Clapton :  my  next  to  prevent  misrepresentation,  to  write 
immediately.  I  thought  on  reflection  however  that  the 
most  considerate  and  proper  course  would  be  to  state  to 
you  exactly  what  I  wish  to  do.  I  ask  your  consent  pre- 
viously for  this  reason  —  because  it  is  possible  that  you 
may  think  that  my  writing  a  violent  note  would  have  the 
effect  of  exciting  ill  nature  which  had  better  be  avoided.  I 
candidly  own  that  I  am  most  anxious  to  write.  I  care  as 
little  for  her  malice  as  I  do  for  her,  but  as  you  are  a  party 
who  would  perhaps  be  mixed  up  with  her  story  I  think 
it  is  proper  to  ask  you  whether  you  object  to  my  send- 

1  His  sister. 
[49] 


ing  the  note  which  I  have  already  written.  I  need  hardly 
say  that  if  it  be  sent  at  all  it  should  be  at  once,  and  I 
therefore  hope  to  receive  your  decision  tomorrow,  as- 
suring you  that  I  will  abide  by  it  whatever  it  be. 

I  will  not  detain  you  or  intrude  upon  your  attention 
by  any  more  observations.  I  fear  1  could  say  little 
calculated  to  interest  or  please  you.  I  have  no  hopes  to 
express,  no  wishes  to  communicate.  I  am  past  the  one 
and  must  not  think  of  the  other.  Though  surprised  at 
such  inconceivable  duplicity  I  can  express  no  pleasure  at 
the  discovery,  for  I  have  been  so  long  used  to  inward 
wretchedness  and  real,  real  misery,  that  it  matters  little, 
very  little  to  me  what  others  may  think  of  or  what 
becomes  of  me  —  I  have  to  apologize  for  troubling  you 
at  all  but  I  hope  you  will  believe  that  a  sense  of  respect 
for  and  deference  to  your  feelings  has  elicited  this  note 
to  which  I  have  once  again  to  beg  your  immediate 
answer. 

Charles  Dickens 

18  Bentinck  Street, 
Tuesday  Afternoon. 

18  Bentinck  Street, 
Thursday  4  o'clock. 

I  cannot  forbear  replying  to  your  note  this  moment 
received,  Miss  Beadnell,  because  you  really  seem  to  have 
made  two  mistakes.  In  the  first  place  you  do  not  exactly 
understand  the  nature  of  my  feelings  with  regard  to  your 
alleged  communications  to  M[ary]  A[nne]  L[eigh],  and 
in  the  next  you  certainly  totally  and  entirely  misunder- 
stand my  feeling  with  regard  to  her  —  that  you  could 
suppose,  as  you  clearly  do  (that  is  to  say  if  the  subject 

[50] 


is  worth  a  thought  to  you),  that  I  have  ever  really 
thought  of  M  A  L  in  any  other  than  my  old  way  you 
are  mistaken.  That  she  has  for  some  reason  and  to  suit 
her  own  purposes,  of  late  thrown  herself  in  my  way,  I 
could  plainly  see,  and  I  know  it  was  noticed  by  others. 
For  instance  on  the  night  of  the  play,^  after  we  went  up 
stairs  -I  could  not  get  rid  of  her.  God  knows  that  I  have 
no  pleasure  in  speaking  to  her  or  any  girl  living,  and 
never  had.  May  I  say  thdA  you  have  ever  been  the  sole 
exception  ?  "  Kind  words  and  winning  looks  "  have 
done  much,  much  with  me  —  but  not  from  her —  unkind 
words  and  cold  looks,  however,  have  done  much,  much 
more.  That  I  have  been  the  subject  of  both  from 
you  as  your  will  altered  and  your  pleasure  changed,  / 
know  well  —  and  so  I  think  must  you.  I  have  often  said 
before,  and  I  say  again,  1  have  borne  more  from  you 
than  I  do  believe  any  creature  breathing  ever  bore  from 
a  woman  before.  The  slightest  hint,  however,  even  now 
of  change  or  transfer  of  feeling  I  cannot  bear  and  do  not 
deserve. 

Again,  I  never  supposed  nor  did  this  girl  give  me  to 
understand  that  you  ever  breathed  a  syllable  against  me. 
It  is  quite  a  mistake  on  your  part,  but  knowing  (and 
there  cannot  be  a  stronger  proof  of  my  disliking  her) 
what  she  was ;  knowing  her  admirable  qualifications  for 
a  confidante  and  recollecting  what  had  passed  between 
ourselves,  I  was  more  than  hurt,  more  than  annoyed  at 
the  bare  idea  of  your  confiding  the  tale  to  her  of  all 
people  living.  I  reflected  upon  it.  I  coupled  her  com- 
munication with  what  I  saw  (with  a  jaundiced  eye  per- 

1  Perhaps  his  burlesque  The  O'Thello. 
[51] 


haps)  of  your  own  conduct ;  on  the  very  last  occasion 
of  seeing  you  before  writing  that  note^  1  heard  even 
among  your  own  friends  (and  there  was  no  Mary  Ann 
present),  I  heard  even  among  them  remarks  on  your  own 
conduct  and  pity  —  pity,  Good  God !  —  for  my  situa- 
tion, and  I  did  think  (you  will  pardon  my  saying  it  for  I 
am  describing  my  then  feelings  and  not  my  present)  that 
the  same  light  butterfly  feeling  which  prompted  the  one 
action  could  influence  the  other.  Wretched,  aye  almost 
brokenhearted,  I  wrote  to  you  — (I  have  the  note  for 
you  returned  it,''  and  even  now  I  do  think  it  was  written 
"  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,"  and  to  my  mind  —  I 
had  almost  said  to  your  better  judgment  —  it  must  appear 
to  breathe  anything  but  an  unkind  or  bitter  feeling), — 
you  replied  to  the  note.  I  wrote  another  and  that  at 
least  was  expressive  of  the  same  sentiments  as  I  ever 
had  felt  and  ever  should  feel  towards  you  to  my  dying 
day.  That  note  you  sent  me  back  by  hand  wrapped  in 
a  small  loose  piece  of  paper  without  even  the  formality 
of  an  envelope  and  that  note  I  wrote  after  receiving 
yours.  It  is  poor  sport  to  trifle  on  a  subject  like  this : 
I  knew  what  your  feelings  must  have  been  and  by  them 
I  regulated  my  conduct. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  what  is  best  to  be  done. 
I  go  to  KoUe's  at  10  o'clock  tomorrow  Evening  and  I 
will  inclose  to  you  and  give  to  him  then  a  copy  of  the 
note  which  if  I  send  any  I  will  send  to  Marianne  Leigh. 
I  do  not  ask  your  advice ;  all  I  ask  is  whether  you  see  any 

1  The  one  of  March  18  in  which  he  broke  off  all  relations  with 
Maria  Beadnell. 

2  This  explains  why  the  first  letter  is  in  Maria  Beadnell' s  hand, 
not  that  of  Dickens. 

[52] 


reason  to  object.    You  will  perhaps  inclose  it  after  read- 
ing it,  and  say  whether  you  object  to  its  going  or  not. 

With  regard  to  Fanny  if  she  owed  a  duty  to  you  she 
owed  a  greater  one  to  me  —  and  for  this  reason  because 
she  knew  what  Marianne  Leigh  had  said  oi you;  she 
heard  from  you  what  she  had  said  of  me  and  yet  she  had 
not  the  fairness  the  candour  the  feeling  to  let  me  know 
it  —  and  if  1  were  to  live  a  hundred  years  I  never  would 
forgive  it. 

As  to  sending  my  last  note  back,  pray  do  not  consult 
my  feelings  hut  your  own.  Look  at  the  note  itself.  Do 
you  think  it  is  unkind,  cold,  hasty,  or  conciliatory  and 
deliberate?  1  shall  —  indeed  I  need  —  express  no  wish 
upon  the  subject.  You  will  act  as  you  think  best.  It  is 
too  late  for  me  to  attempt  to  influence  your  decision.  I 
have  said  doubtless  both  in  this  and  my  former  note 
much  more  than  perhaps  I  ought  or  should  have  said  had 
I  attempted  disguise  or  concealment  to  you  and  I  have 
no  doubt  more  than  is  agreeable  to  yourself.  Towards 
you  1  never  had  and  never  can  have  an  angry  feeling. 
If  you  had  ever  felt  for  me  one  hundredth  part  of  my 
feeling  for  you  there  would  have  been  little  cause  of 
regret,  little  coldness  little  unkindness  between  us.  My 
feeling  on  one  subject  was  early  roused;  it  has  been 
strong,  and  it  will  be  lasting.  I  am  in  no  mood  to 
quarrel  with  any  one  for  not  entertaining  similar  senti- 
ments, and  least  of  all,  Miss  Beadnell,  with  you.  You 
will  think  of  what  I  have  said  and  act  accordingly  — 
Destitute  as  I  am  of  hope  or  comfort,  1  have  borne 
much  and  I  dare  say  can  bear  more. 

Yours,  Charles  Dickens 

[53] 


The  following  letter,  dated  only  "Friday," 
was  evidently  written  the  day  after  the  pre- 
ceding. Recall  the  words :  "  I  go  to  Kolle's  at 
10  o'clock  tomorrow  Evening  and  I  will  in- 
close to  you  and  give  to  him  then  a  copy  of 
the  note  which  if  I  send  any  I  will  send  to 
Marianne  Leigh."  — 

Agreeably  to  my  promise  I  beg  to  Inclose  you  a  Copy 
of  the  note  I  propose  to  send  to  Marianne  Leigh,  which 
you  will  perhaps  be  so  good  as  to  return  me  (as  I  have 
no  other  copy  from  which  to  write  the  original)  as  soon  as 
possible.  I  had  intended  to  have  made  it  more  severe  but 
perhaps  upon  the  whole  the  inclosed  will  be  sufficient  — 
Until  receiving  any  answer  you  may  make  to  my  last  note 
I  will  not  trouble  you  with  any  further  observation.  Of 
course  you  will  at  least  on  this  point  (I  mean  Marianne 
Leigh's  note)  say  what  you  think  without  reserve  and 
any  course  you  may  propose  or  any  alteration  you  may 
suggest  shall  on  my  word  and  honor  be  instantly  adopted. 
Should  anything  you  may  say  (in  returning  her  note)  to 
me  make  me  anxious  to  return  any  answer,  may  I  have 
your  permission  to  forward  it  to  you  ? 

I  find  I  have  proceeded  to  the  end  of  my  note  without 

even  inserting  your  name.     May  I  ask  you  to  excuse  the 

omission  and  to  believe  that  I  would  gladly  have  addressed 

you  in  a  very,  very  different  way } 

Charles  Dickens 
Miss  Maria  Beadnell 

18BENTINCK  Street, 
Friday. 

[54] 


The  next  letter,  to  Miss  Leigh,  is  from  a 
copy  in  Maria  Beadnell's  handwriting,  for  the 
original  was  returned  by  her  to  Dickens,  in 
accordance  with  his  request.  The  copy  was 
apparently  written  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  origi- 
nal, for  on  the  outside  is  "  Miss  Beadnell "  in 
the  handwriting  of  Dickens.  — 

Dear  Miss  Leigh,  —  I  am  very  happy  to  avail  myself 
of  the  opportunity  of  inclosing  your  Album  (which  I 
regret  to  say  want  of  a  moment's  time  has  quite  pre- 
vented me  writing  in).  To  say  a  very  few  words  relative 
to  an  observation  made  by  you  the  other  day  to  one  of 
the  Miss  Beadnells  I  believe ;  and  which  has  only  I  regret 
to  say  just  reached  my  ears  quite  accidentally.  I  should 
not  have  noticed  it  at  all  were  it  merely  an  idle  gossiping 
remark,  for  one  is  necessarily  compelled  to  hear  so  many 
of  them  and  they  are  usually  so  trifling  and  so  ridiculous 
that  it  w  'd  be  mere  waste  of  time  to  notice  them  in  any 
way.  The  remark  to  which  I  allude  however  is  one 
which  if  it  had  the  slightest  foundation  in  truth  — w'd 
so  strongly  tend  to  implicate  me  as  a  dishonorable  bab- 
bler, with  little  heart  and  less  head,  that  in  justice  to 
myself  I  cannot  refrain  from  adverting  to  it  —  You  will 
at  once  perceive  I  allude  to  your  giving  them  to  under- 
stand (if  not  directly  by  implication)  that  I  had  made  you 
my  confidante,  with  respect  to  anything  which   [may] 

have  [?]  ^  passed  between  Maria  B and  myself.   Now, 

[?]^  passing  over  any  remark  which  may  have  been  art- 

1  The  brackets  mark  torn  places  in  the  MS. 
[55] 


fully  elicited  from  me  in  any  unguarded  moment,  I  can 
safely  say  that  1  never  made  a  confidante  of  any  one.  I 
am  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  if  I  had  wished  to 
secure  a  confidante  in  whom  candour,  secrecy  and  kind 
honorable  feeling  were  indispensable  requisites  I  could 
have  looked  to  no  one  better  calculated  for  this  office 
than  yourself;  but  still  the  making  you  the  depositary 
of  my  feelings  or  secrets,  is  an  honor  I  never  presumed 
to  expect,  and  one  which  I  certainly  must  beg  most 
positively  to  decline  —  A  proof  of  self  denial  in  which 
so  far  as  I  learn  from  other  avowed  confidantes  of 
yours,  I  am  by  no  means  singular. 

I  have  not  hesitated  to  speak  plainly  because  I  feel 
most  strongly  on  this  subject.  The  allegation  —  if  it 
were  not  grossly  untrue —  I  again  say  tending  so  materi- 
ally to  inculpate  me,  and  the  assertion  itself  having  been 
made  (so  far  as  I  can  learn  at  least,  for  it  has  reached  me 
in  a  very  circuitous  manner)  certainly  not  in  the  most 
unaffected  or  delicate  way. 

I  hope  you  will  understand  that  in  troubling  you,  I 
am  not  actuated  by  any  absurd  idea  of  self  consequence. 
I  am  perfectly  aware  of  my  own  unimportance,  and  it  is 
solely  because  I  am  so ;  because  I  w'd  much  rather  mis- 
manage my  own  affairs,  than  have  them  ably  conducted 
by  the  officious  interference  of  any  one,  because  I  do 
think  that  your  interposition  in  this  instance,  however  well- 
intentioned,  has  been  productive  of  as  much  mischief  as 
it  has  been  uncalled  for ;  and  because  I  am  really  and 
sincerely  desirous  of  sparing  you  the  meanness  and 
humiliation  of  acting  in  the  petty  character  of  an  un- 
authorized go-between  that  I  have  been  induced  to  write 

[56] 


this  note —  for  the  length  of  which  I  beg  you  will  accept 
my  apology. 

I  am,  Dear  Miss  Leigh, 

Yours  &c.,  Charles  Dickens  * 

To  be  corresponding  again  with  Maria  Bead- 
nell,  no  matter  liow  unsatisfactorily,  was  too 
much  for  the  self-control  of  the  youth,  so  he 
flings  aside  all  pride  and  pleads  in  the  follow- 
ing letter  for  reinstatement :  — 

18  Bentinck  Street, 
Sunday  Morning. 

Dear  Miss  Beadnell.  —  I  am  anxious  to  take  the 
earliest  opportunity  of  writing  to  you  again,  knowing 
that  the  opportunity  of  addressing  you  through  Kolle  — 
now  my  only  means  of  communicating  with  you  —  will 
shortly  be  lost,  and  having  your  own  permission  to  write 
to  you  —  I  am  most  desirous  of  forwarding  a  note  which 
had  I  received  such  permission  earlier,  I  can  assure  you 
you  would  have  received  'ere  this.  Before  proceeding  to 
say  a  word  upon  the  subject  of  my  present  note  let  me 
beg  you  to  believe  that  your  request  to  see  Marianne 
Leigh's  answer  is  rendered  quite  unnecessary  by  my 
previous  determination  to  shew  it  you,  which  1  shall  do 
immediately  on  receiving  it  —  that  is  to  say,  if  1  receive 
any  at  all.  If  1  know  anything  of  her  art  or  disposition 
however  you  are  mistaken  in  supposing  that  her  remarks 
will  be  directed  against  yourself.  /  shall  be  the  mark  at 
which  all  the  anger  and  spleen  will  be  directed  —  and  I 

1  The  last  three  letters  are  watermarked  "  1832." 

[57] 


shall  take  it  very  quietly  for  whatever  she  may  say  I 
shall  positively  decline  to  enter  into  any  further  con- 
troversy with  her.  I  shall  have  no  objection  to  break 
a  lance,  paper  or  otherwise,  with  any  champion  to  whom 
she  may  please  to  entrust  her  cause  but  I  will  have  no 
futher  correspondence  or  communication  with  her  per- 
sonally or  in  writing.  I  have  copied  the  note  and  done 
up  the  parcel  which  will  go  off  by  the  first  Clapton 
Coach  to-morrow  morning. 

And  now  to  the  object  of  my  present  note.  I  have 
considered  and  reconsidered  the  matter,  and  I  have  come 
to  the  unqualified  determination  that  I  will  allow  no  feel- 
ing of  pride,  no  haughty  dislike  to  making  a  conciliation 
to  prevent  my  expressing  it  without  reserve.  I  will  ad- 
vert to  nothing  that  has  passed ;  I  will  not  again  seek 
to  excuse  any  part  I  have  acted  or  to  justify  it  by  any 
course  you  have  ever  pursued ;  I  will  revert  to  nothing 
that  has  ever  passed  between  us,  —  I  will  only  openly 
and  at  once  say  that  there  is  nothing  1  have  more  at 
heart,  nothing  I  more  sincerely  and  earnestly  desire,  than 
to  be  reconciled  to  you.  —  It  would  be  useless  for  me  to 
repeat  here  what  I  have  so  often  said  before ;  it  would 
be  equally  useless  to  look  forward  and  state  my  hopes 
for  the  future  —  all  that  any  one  can  do  to  raise  himself 
by  his  own  exertions  and  unceasing  assiduity  I  have  done, 
and  will  do.  I  have  no  guide  by  which  to  ascertain  your 
present  feelings  and  I  have,  God  knows,  no  means  of  in- 
fluencing them  in  my  favor.  I  never  have  loved  and  I 
never  can  love  any  human  creature  breathing  but  your- 
self. We  have  had  many  differences,  and  we  have  lately 
been  entirely  separated.     Absence,  however,  has  not 

[58] 


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_ 


altered  my  feelings  in  the  slightest  degree,  and  the  Love 
I  now  tender  you  is  as  pure  and  as  lasting  as  at  any  period 
of  our  former  correspondence.  1  have  now  done  all  1 
can  to  remove  our  most  unfortunate  and  to  me  most 
unhappy  misunderstanding.  The  matter  now  of  course 
rests  solely  with  you,  and  you  will  decide  as  your  own 
feelings  and  wishes  direct  you.  1  could  say  much  for 
myself  and  I  could  entreat  a  favourable  consideration  on 
my  own  behalf  but  I  purposely  abstain  from  doing  so 
because  it  would  be  only  a  repetition  of  an  oft  told  tale 
and  because  I  am  sure  that  nothing  I  could  say  would 
have  the  effect  of  influencing  your  decision  in  any  degree 
whatever.  Need  1  say  that  to  me  it  is  a  matter  of  vital 
import  and  the  most  intense  anxiety  ?  —  I  fear  that  the 
numerous  claims  which  must  necessarily  be  made  on  your 
time  and  attention  next  week  will  prevent  your  answering 
this  note  within  anything  like  the  time  which  my  impa- 
tience would  name.  Let  me  entreat  you  to  consider  your 
determination  well  whatever  it  be  and  let  me  implore  you 
to  communicate  it  to  me  as  early  as  possible.  —  As  I  am 
anxious  to  convey  this  note  into  the  City  in  time  to  get 
it  delivered  today  I  will  at  once  conclude  by  begging  you 
to  believe  me, 

Yours  sincerely,         Charles  Dickens  * 

It  certainly  is  difficult  to  understand  Maria 
Beadnell's  treatment  of  this  ardent  youth.  She 
was  interested  enough  to  keep  careful  copies 
of  such  letters  of  his  as  for  one  reason  or 

1  Paper  watermarked  "  1831." 
[59] 


another  she  returned ;  yet  in  response  to  this 
last  unreservedly  loving  appeal  she  answered 
him  "  coldly  and  reproachfully,"  ^  and  thus  they 
parted,  not  to  meet  again  for  more  than  twenty 
years. 

If  the  editor  is  right  in  thinking  that  the 
reference  to  the  "  numerous  claims  which  must 
necessarily  be  made  on  your  time  and  attention 
next  week"  concerns  the  wedding  of  Anne 
Beadnell  in  May,  1833,  then  the  relations  with 
Maria  were  not  broken  off  earlier  than  the 
middle  of  May,  1833.  "  If  youth  but  knew  1 " 
"I  never  have  loved  and  never  can  love  any 
human  creature  breathing  but  yourself,"  the 
youth  cried  in  May,  1833,  yet  in  183^,  at  most 
not  over  two  years  later,  he  became  engaged  to 
Miss  Catherine  Hogarth,  daughter  of  George 
Hogarth,  his  colleague  on  the  Morning  Chroni- 
cle, and  author  of  The  History  of  Opera.  On 
the  second  of  April,  I836,  he  was  married. 

Indeed,  nothing  could  better  demonstrate  the 
fundamental  sanity  and  normality  of  Dickens' 
apparently  somewhat  overwrought  nature  than 
his  reaction  from  this  intense  love  affair.    Of 

•  In  the  later  series  of  letters,  Dickens  wrote  Mrs.  Winter  on  Feb- 
ruary 22, 18SS,  —  "  You  answered  me  coldly  and  reproachfully,  and 
so  I  went  my  way." 

[60] 


course  he  suflfered,  but  ambition  re-enforced  by 
the  impulsive  energy  of  youth  swiftly  pulled 
him  out  of  any  depths  of  despair.  Wounded 
pride  bade  him  cut  himself  free  from  the  group 
in  which  the  painful  experience  had  come  to 
him.  This  he  seems,  wisely,  to  have  done. 
The  following  letter  to  the  father  of  Maria 
Beadnell  shows  clearly  that  however  much  the 
young  man  may  have  lingered  in  memory  over 
his  lost  love,  he  cut  himself  loose  from  her 
circle  of  friends  and  saw  no  more  of  them  till 
his  success  as  a  writer  had  established  him  in 
a  totally  ditferent  part  of  society.  While  the 
letter  is  friendly  enough,  it  shows  that  there 
could  have  been  no  intimate  intercourse. 

This  letter  was  in  reply  to  an  invitation  of 
Mr.  George  Beadnell  to  visit  him  at  his  country 
place,  Myford,  Welshpool.  — 

office  of  household  words, 

16  Wellington  Street,  North-Strand, 
Tuesday,  fourth  May,  1852.1 

My  dear  Sir,  —  Receiving  your  note  as  I  was  coming 
out  at  my  door  this  morning,  I  brought  it  with  me  down 
here  to  answer.  Your  handwriting  is  like  a  breath  of 
my  hobbledehoyhood  and  is  delightful  to  encounter. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  cannot  enjoy  the  pleasure  you 

1  This  was  only  three  years  before  the  opening  of  the  correspond- 
ence with  Mrs.  Winter. 

[61] 


propose  to  me.  I  should  like  it  very  much,  but  I  can 
never  take  any  private  enjoyment  on  these  occasions. 
For  what  Sir  James  Graham  calls  "  the  reasons  of,"  1 
sketch  the  following  short  list  of  my  avocations. 

1  am  on  the  stage  all  day,  rehearsing  with  everybody, 
from  breakfast  until  dinner.  I  preside  at  all  the  meals  of 
the  amateur  company,  and  carve  all  the  large  joints.  We 
carry  into  the  country  a  perfect  army  of  carpenters,  gas- 
men, tailors,  barbers,  property-men,  dressers  and  ser- 
vants; all  of  whom  have  become  accustomed  to  do 
everything  with  the  utmost  precision  and  accuracy  under 
the  Managerial  eye,  but  none  of  whom  would  do  any- 
thing right,  if  that  luminary  were  withdrawn  from  any 
of  them  for  five  minutes  at  a  stretch.  So  1  am  perpetu- 
ally hovering  among  and  fluttering  these  smaller  birds ; 
at  the  last  minute  when  the  Hall  has  been  filled  for  weeks, 
all  sorts  of  impossible  people  want  all  sorts  of  impossible 
places,  and  have  to  be  given  the  most  urbane  explana- 
tions. I  then  settle  down  for  an  hour  or  so  before  the 
rising  of  the  Curtain,  to  dress,  enter  upon  two  parts, 
something  longer  (I  should  say)  than  the  whole  play  of 
Hamlet  —  am  dressed  fourteen  times  in  the  course  of  the 
night  —  and  go  to  bed  a  little  tired. 

Add  to  this,  that  we  start  for  Birmingham  on  Tuesday 
morning  to  do  all  this  over  again,  and  act  in  the  Town 
Hall  two  nights  running  —  and  1  leave  you  to  guess  what 
hope  of  Wales  is  in  me ! 

I  should  like  to  shake  hands  with  you  nevertheless  — 
I  hope  1  may  find  time  for  that !  —  And  if  you  should 
ask  for  me  at  the  Music  Hall  on  Monday  between  11  and 
2,  you  are  sure  to  find  me  in  full  —  career  of  botheration. 

[62] 


Pray  give  my  love  to  Margaret,^  and  ask  her  to  give 

the  same  to  Maria  if  she  should  see  her.     (I  am  exactly 

nineteen  when  I  write  their  names.)     Also  remember  me 

kindly  to  Mr.  David  Lloyd,  and  believe  me  ever,  with 

ten  thousand  old  recollections, 

Faithfully  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 
George  Beadnell  Esq. 

What  helped  Dickens  to  disentangle  himself 
was  his  persistent,  vigorous  interest  in  life, — his 
insatiable  curiosity  as  to  all  human  experience. 
He  had,  too,  as  the  theatrical  program  already 
printed  proves,  other  friends  to  turn  to,  and 
new  friends  were  in  the  making.  The  theatre 
itself  unfailingly  interested  him:  he  could 
never  resist  a  chance  at  amateur  theatricals. 
He  was  rising  as  a  reporter,  and,  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  he  began  in  December,  1833,  to 
print  in  the  Old  Monthly  Magazine  the  first  of 
his  Sketches  by  Bo{.  Nine  more  were  printed  in 
this  magazine  before  March,  183^.  The  pseu- 
donym "  Boz  "  was  first  used  with  the  article  of 
August,  1834.  So  prompt  was  his  success,  that 
early  in  183 6  he  brought  together  for  publica- 
tion his  Sketches  by  Bo{,  and  on  the  last  day 
of  March,  183 6,  issued  the  first  number  of  his 

1  Mrs.  Lloyd,  Maria's  eldest  sister. 
[63] 


Pickwick  Papers.  A  year  is  a  long  time  at 
twenty-one,  and,  as  Mr.  Chesterton  has  clearly 
said,  the  suffering  of  youth  is  especially  painful 
because  it  has  no  vision  of  the  alleviation  which 
time  surely  brings  for  any  pain :  it  sees  only 
the  past  and  the  miserable  present,  —  never  the 
future.  Undoubtedly  Dickens  suffered  for  a 
time;  undoubtedly  he  looked  back  on  these 
years  later  with  the  deep  pity  which  any  ret- 
rospect into  his  youth  seemed  always  to  arouse 
in  him.  It  is  clear,  too,  from  his  early  writing, 
that  the  people  whom  he  had  met  in  the  circle 
of  the  Beadnell  family  made  a  deep  impression 
on  him,  and  that  his  own  sensations  in  this  in- 
tercourse left  him  a  large  residuum  of  material 
for  his  novels. 

What  also  must  have  helped  Dickens  greatly 
at  this  time  was  his  artist  instinct  for  expres- 
sion. He  took  hints  from  the  Beadnell  group 
for  figures  in  his  SketcbeSy  or  he  frankly  put 
his  memories  on  paper,  of  course  heighten- 
ing the  effect  a  little  in  most  cases  because  he 
looked  at  what  he  had  seen,  if  not  at  what  he 
had  felt,  through  the  medium  of  his  fantastic 
humor.  For  the  artist  of  any  sort,  conditions, 
people,  emotions  expressed  in  his  proper  med- 
ium become  at  once  of  the  past  rather  than 

[64] 


the  harassing  present.  The  selective  presen- 
tation which  any  art  necessitates  brings  a 
sense  of  proportion. 

The  second  of  the  Sketches  by  Bo{  published 
in  January,  18M,  has  the  title,  Mrs.  Joseph 
Porter  over  the  Way.  As  any  Dickens  lover 
will  recall,  the  mischief-making  of  Mrs.  Porter 
causes  the  complete  and  ignominious  failure 
of  an  amateur  performance  of  Othello.  Now 
Dickens  had  in  1833  arranged  an  amateur 
performance  of  a  burlesque  of  his  on  Othello, 
and  the  verses  of  his  already  printed  indicate 
that  Mrs.  John  Porter  Leigh  —  who,  by  the 
way,  lived  not  at  Clapham  as  does  Mrs. 
Porter,  but  at  Clapton  —  was  the  same  sort 
of  person. — 

Mrs.  Leigh  a  Curry,  smart,  hot  and  biting, 
Although  a  dish  that  is  always  inviting  — 

'Bout  scandal  or  spreading  reports  without  heed. 

Of  course  I  'd  say  nothing,  how  could  I  indeed  ? 

Because  if  I  did  I  should  certainly  lie, 

And  my  remarks  here  doubtless  would  not  apply ; 

So  as  I  fear  either  to  praise  or  to  blame, 

I  will  not  her  faults  or  her  virtues  here  name. 

Certainly  the  resemblance  between  the  names 
of  place  and  person  strengthens  the  suspicion 

[65] 


roused  by  the  similarity  of  conditions,  that 
Mrs.  Leigh  sat  for  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Porter. 

It  looks,  too,  as  if  in  his  sketch,  7be  New 
Year,  Dickens  was  thinking  of  the  Beadnell 
circle.  It  is  reasonably  sure  that  William  Moule 
suggested  the  ubiquitous  Mr.  Tupple. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  one  sees  in  the  early 
writings  of  Dickens  other  memories  and  por- 
traits from  the  Beadnell  circle,  but  such  identi- 
fications are  at  best  dangerous,  for  Dickens 
was  skilled  in  all  the  novelist's  accustomed 
mixing  of  characteristics  observed  in  two  dif- 
ferent people  and  of  obvious  and  imagined 
qualities.  Moreover,  his  field  of  observation 
steadily  widened,  so  that  there  may  well  be 
more  than  one  possible  original  for  many  of 
his  figures,  even  in  the  early  writings. 

The  memory  of  those  early  days  in  Lombard 
Street  lingered  long  after  the  time  of  which 
I  am  writing,  for  there  is  recollection  of  Joseph 
Moule  in  the  Military  Young  Gent  of  Sketches 
of  Young  Gents,  and  Fanny  Moule  foreshadows 
a  well-known  figure  of  David  Copperfield. 

That  Joe  Moule,  referred  to  in  The  Bill  of 
Fare,  sat  for  the  portrait  is  evident  from  the 
following :  — 

"  The  whole  heart  and  soul  of  the  military 

[66] 


young  gentleman  are  concentrated  in  hisfavorite 
topic.  There  is  nothing  that  he  is  so  learned 
upon  as  uniforms;  he  will  tell  you  without 
faltering  for  an  instant,  what  the  habiliments 
of  any  one  regiment  are  turned  up  with,  what 
regiment  wear  stripes  down  the  outside  and 
inside  of  the  leg,  and  how  many  buttons  the 
Tenth  had  on  their  coats,  he  knows  to  a  frac- 
tion how  many  yards  and  odd  inches  of  gold 
lace  it  takes  to  make  an  ensign  in  the  Guards, 
is  deeply  read  in  the  comparative  merits  of 
different  bands,  and  the  apparelling  of  trumpet- 
ers and  is  very  luminous  indeed  in  descanting 
upon  *  crack  regiments '  and  the  '  crack '  gentle- 
men who  compose  them,  of  whose  mightiness 
and  grandeur  he  is  never  tired  of  telling."  * 

Again  the  lines  in  The  Bill  of  Fare  relating 
to  Fanny  Moule'^  show  where  Dickens  first 
watched  the  sentimental  melancholy  which  he 
later  satirized  in  the  Miss  Julia  Mills  of  David 
Copperfield,  and  the  Miss  Mills  of  Our  English 
Watering  Place. 

In  David  Copperfield,  Miss  Mills  is  described 
as  "that  amiable,  though  quite  used-up  re- 
cluse; that  little  patriarch  of  something  less 
than  twenty,  who  had  done  with  the  world 

1  See  page  36,  ante.  *  See  page  35 1  ante. 

[67] 


and  mustn't  on  any  account  have  the  slum- 
bering echoes  in  the  caverns  of  Memory  awak- 
ened .  .  .  having  been  unhappy  in  a  misplaced 
affection,  and  being  understood  to  have  retired 
from  the  world  on  her  awful  stock  of  experi- 
ence, but  still  to  take  a  calm  interest  in  the 
unblighted  hopes  and  loves  of  youth." 

Even  out  of  the  very  real  suffering  that  was 
the  youth's  for  a  time,  the  longing  that  caused 
him  to  throw  aside  all  wounded  pride,  to  come 
from  behind  his  reserves  and  beg  for  a  renewal 
of  the  old  relations,  —  out  of  all  this  developed 
the  enriched  art  that  searching  emotion  always 
leaves  with  the  artist  who  has  gone  through 
vital  experiences.  Even  as  he  ran  —  with  an 
unusually  intense  nature  —  the  gamut  of  youth- 
ful passion,  from  puzzled  scrutiny  of  the  way- 
wardness of  Maria  Beadnell,  through  wounded 
pride,  despised  love,  to  passionate  devotion 
that  recked  nothing  so  long  as  it  might  serve 
the  charmer,  the  human  heart  in  all  its  moods 
of  interest,  attachment,  love,  and  passion  was 
revealing  itself  to  him.  The  emotions  and  ob- 
servations of  this  early  period  made  possible 
the  characters  of  David  Copperfield,  Pip,  Brad- 
ley Headstone,  and  even  Toots. 

They  are  quite  as  much  the  creations  of  his 

[68] 


imagination  reacting  on  these  personal  experi- 
ences as  they  are  the  results  of  close  observa- 
tion. Indeed,  Dickens  always  wrote  from 
within  out,  tempering  his  realism  with  a  re- 
markably original  and  personal  imagination. 
It  is  easy  to  see  in  the  words  of  Hexam  and 
Pip  the  reflection  of  the  successive  moods  by 
which  he  passed  to  the  state  in  which  he  could 
look  back  on  the  whole  painful  experience  as 
kindly  as  he  does  in  one  of  his  letters  of  \SSS. 
What  drew  young  Dickens  back  to  Maria 
Beadnell,  what  made  him  ask  for  a  renewal 
of  their  relations,  was  the  mood  he  paints  in 
Headstone's  appeal  to  Lizzie:  — 

"  I  have  never  been  quit  of  you  since  I  first 
saw  you.  Oh,  that  was  a  wretched  day  for 
me!  That  was  a  wretched,  miserable  day! 
...  I  have  in  my  way  won  a  station  which 
is  considered  worth  winning.  .  .  .  You  draw 
me  to  you.  If  I  were  shut  up  in  a  strong 
prison,  you  would  draw  me  out.  I  should 
break  through  the  wall  to  come  to  you.  If  I 
were  lying  on  a  sick  bed,  you  would  draw  me 
up  to  stagger  to  you  and  fall  there.  .  .  . 

"  No  man  knows,  till  the  time  comes,  what 
depths  are  within  him.  To  some  men  it  never 
comes;  let  them  rest  and  be  thankful!    To 

[69] 


me,  you  brought  it;  on  me,  you  forced  it; 
and  the  bottom  of  this  raging  sea,"  striking 
himself  upon  the  breast,  "  has  been  heaved  up 
ever  since.  .  .  .  You  know  what  I  am  going 
to  say.  I  love  you.  What  other  men  may 
mean  when  they  use  that  expression,  I  cannot 
tell ;  what  /  mean  is,  that  I  am  under  the  in- 
fluence of  some  tremendous  attraction  which 
I  have  resisted  in  vain,  and  which  overmasters 
me.  You  could  draw  me  to  fire,  you  could 
draw  me  to  water,  you  could  draw  me  to  the 
gallows,  you  could  draw  me  to  any  death,  you 
could  draw  me  to  anything  I  have  most  avoided, 
you  could  draw  me  to  any  exposure  and  dis- 
grace. This  and  the  confusion  of  my  thoughts, 
so  that  I  am  fit  for  nothing,  is  what  I  mean 
by  your  being  the  ruin  of  me.  But,  if  you 
would  return  a  favourable  answer  to  my  offer 
of  myself  in  marriage,  you  could  draw  me  to 
any  good  —  every  good  —  with  equal  force. 
My  circumstances  are  quite  easy,  and  you 
would  want  for  nothing.  My  reputation  stands 
quite  high,  and  would  be  a  shield  for  yours. 
If  you  saw  me  at  my  work,  able  to  do  it  well 
and  respected  in  it,  you  might  even  come  to 
take  a  sort  of  pride  in  me ;  —  1  would  try  hard 
that  you  should.  ...  I  don't  know  that  I 

[70] 


could  say  more  if  I  tried.  ...  I  only  add  that, 
if  it  is  any  claim  on  you  to  be  in  earnest,  I  am 
in  thorough  earnest,  dreadful  earnest." 

As  time  passed,  the  mood  became  the  quieter 
one  shown  by  Pip  when  Estella  says  that  he 
will  shortly  be  able  to  put  her  out  of  his 
thoughts :  — 

"  Out  of  my  thoughts  1  You  are  part  of  my 
existence,  part  of  myself.  You  have  been  in 
every  line  I  have  ever  read,  since  I  first  came 
here,  the  rough  common  boy  whose  poor  heart 
you  wounded  even  then.  You  have  been  in 
every  prospect  I  have  ever  seen  since  —  on  the 
river,  on  the  sails  of  the  ships,  on  the  marshes, 
in  the  clouds,  in  the  light,  in  the  darkness,  in 
the  wind,  in  the  woods,  in  the  sea,  in  the 
streets.  You  have  been  the  embodiment  of 
every  graceful  fancy  that  my  mind  has  ever 
become  acquainted  with.  The  stones  of  which 
the  strongest  London  buildings  are  made,  are 
not  more  real,  or  more  impossible  to  be  dis- 
placed by  your  hands,  than  your  presence  and 
influence  have  been  to  me,  there  and  every- 
where, and  will  be.  Estella,  to  the  last  hour 
of  my  life,  you  cannot  choose  but  remain  part 
of  my  character,  part  of  the  little  good  in  me, 
part  of  the  evil.  But,  in  this  separation,  I  asso- 

[71] 


ciate  you  only  with  the  good,  and  1  will  faith- 
fully hold  you  to  that  always,  for  you  must 
have  done  me  far  more  good  than  harm,  let  me 
feel  now  what  sharp  distress  I  may.  Oh, 
God  bless  you,  God  forgive  youl  ...  All 
done,  all  gone  I  So  much  was  done  and  gone, 
that  when  I  went  out  at  the  gate,  the  light  of 
day  seemed  of  a  darker  colour  than  when  1 
went  in."* 

Comparing  the  last  passage  here  with  the 
letter  of  February  22,  18^^,  in  the  second  set 
of  letters  to  be  given  shortly,  one  sees  fresh 
proof  of  the  interplay  of  experience,  imagina- 
tion, and  memory  in  the  characterization  of 
Dickens. 
Also  in  the  letter  of  February  1^,  18^^:  — 
"  Whatever  of  fancy,  romance,  energy,  pas- 
sion, aspiration,  and  determination  belong  to 
me,  I  have  never  separated  and  never  shall 
separate  from  the  hard-hearted  little  woman  — 
you  —  whom  it  is  nothing  to  say  I  would  have 
died  for,  with  the  greatest  alacrity!  I  never 
can  think  and  I  never  seem  to  observe,  that 
other  young  people  are  in  such  desperate 
earnest  or  set  so  much  so  long  upon  one 
absorbing  hope.    It  is  a  matter  of  perfect  cer- 

1  Great  Expectations,  Biog.  Ed.  p.  312. 
[72] 


tainty  to  me  that  I  began  to  fight  my  way  out 
of  poverty  and  obscurity,  with  one  perpetual 
idea  of  you.  This  is  so  fixed  in  my  knowl- 
edge that  to  the  hour  when  I  opened  your 
letter  last  Friday  night,  I  have  never  heard 
anybody  addressed  by  your  name  or  spoken  of 
by  your  name,  without  a  start.  The  sound  of 
it  has  always  filled  me  with  a  kind  of  pity  and 
respect  for  the  deep  truth  that  I  had,  in  my 
silly  hobbledehoyhood,  to  bestow  upon  one 
creature  who  represented  the  whole  world  to 
me.  I  have  never  been  so  good  a  man  since, 
as  I  was  when  you  made  me  wretchedly 
happy.  I  shall  never  be  half  so  good  a  fellow 
again." 

Yet,  of  course  Dickens  recovered  from  the 
blow,  and  as  youth  blessedly  does,  recovered 
rapidly.  Nevertheless,  as  the  last  quotation 
proves,  he  looked  back  upon  it  as  the  most 
significant  experience  of  his  life. 

The  Dickens  who  came  out  of  this,  as  it 
seemed  to  him,  tragic  and  blighting  affair,  was 
not  at  all  the  lad  who  had  gone  into  it  —  a 
curious  combination  of  social  callowness  and 
far  too  sophisticated  knowledge  of  seamier 
London,  a  creature  of  instincts  rather  than 
of  well-understood  emotions.    He  had  known 

[73] 


and  intimately  shared  a  comfortable  family  life 
which  initiated  him  into  the  social  humanities. 
He  had  discovered  the  real  man  in  himself.  A 
passion  intense,  yet  thoroughly  idealistic,  had 
metamorphosed  vague  instincts  of  greatness 
into  a  determination  to  win  for  her  he  loved 
all  he  had  dimly  dreamed,  and  this  determina- 
tion, when  he  broke  off  in  his  outraged  pride 
the  impossibly  galling  relations,  changed  to  a 
grim,  half-indignant  purpose  to  prove  himself 
the  man  he  felt  himself  to  be,  —  a  person  by 
no  means  to  be  played  with  and  scorned,  but 
to  be  taken  as  seriously,  —  well,  as  he  liked  to 
take  himself. 

Nor  is  it  surprising  that,  as  years  passed,  he 
somewhat  idealized  the  whole  affair.  Lucky 
the  youth  who  finds  his  manhood  in  an  in- 
tense emotional  experience  which  stimulates 
him  to  his  best  accomplishment,  which  ma- 
tures him  in  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  the 
human  heart,  without  debasement  for  himself 
or  others ;  which  opens  to  him  for  his  own  all 
the  region  of  romances  for  a  time  his  individ- 
ual possession,  before  experience  can  talk  to 
him  of  propinquity,  the  superman  or  any 
motives  lower  than  the  seemingly  irresistible 
attraction  that  makes  him  ready  to  believe  all 

[74] 


that  is  good  of  one  person  and  ready  to  do  all 
that  is  brave  for  her.  Young  love  like  that  no 
man  forgets  wholly,  whether  or  not  it  result 
in  winning  the  woman  loved.  So  sentimental 
a  man  as  Dickens  could  not  possibly  forget  it. 
He  must  cherish  it,  linger  over  it,  and,  as  the 
great  idealizer  of  the  supposedly  common- 
place, must  idealize  it  too.  Moreover,  as  the 
years  passed,  he  must  have  seen  as  any  sane 
person  would,  that  youth  is  not  so  wise  as  it 
thinks  itself.  He  must  have  felt  that  all  the 
details  of  this  love  affair  had  not  been  as 
perfectly  conducted  by  him  as  he  had  once 
thought,  and  that  possibly  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent behavior  on  his  part  might  have  brought 
a  more  satisfactory  ending.  At  any  rate,  such 
judicial  inquiry  as  to  one's  past  conduct  is  the 
beginning  of  tolerance  for  the  person  previ- 
ously held  to  be  entirely  in  the  wrong. 

Finally,  though  Dickens  was  at  first  happy 
enough  in  his  marriage,  it  was  not  many  years 
before  he  was  feeling  a  sense  of  "  one  happi- 
ness I  have  missed  in  my  life,  and  one  friend 
and  companion  I  have  never  made,"  as  he 
phrased  it  in  a  letter  to  Forster.  Naturally, 
his  thoughts  turned  to  the  "  might-have-been," 
which  presented  itself  none  the  less  attractively 

[75] 


because  seen  through  the  coloring  lens  of  imag- 
ination as  contrasted  with  the  white  light  of  his 
harassing  marital  experience.  Consequently, 
when  writing  David  Copperfield,  that  book 
which  is  in  large  part  but  the  playing  of  a 
richly  fertile  imagination  about  biographical 
incident  and  experience,  he  told  in  David's 
love  for  Dora  his  own  passion  of  twenty  years 
before  for  Maria  Beadnell.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  the  novel  grew  out  of  a  futile  at- 
tempt of  Dickens  to  write  his  autobiography. 
When  he  came  to  the  period  in  his  early  man- 
hood to  which  his  infatuation  for  Maria  Bead- 
nell belonged,  he  "  lost  courage  and  burned  the 
rest."  The  semi-autobiographic  nature  of  the 
book  was  largely  responsible  for  his  intense 
pleasure  in  writing  it.  He  said  to  Mrs.  Watson, 
September  24,  18^0:  — 

"  There  are  some  things  in  the  next  Copper- 
field  that  I  think  better  than  any  that  have 
gone  before.  After  I  have  been  believing  such 
things  with  all  my  heart  and  soul  two  results 
always  ensue ;  first,  I  can't  write  plainly  to  the 
eye ;  secondly,  I  can't  write  sensibly  to  the 
mind." 

To  Forster  he  wrote  thus,  on  October  21 :  **  I 
am  within  three  pages  of  the  shore ;  and  am 

[76] 


strangely  divided,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  be- 
tween sorrow  and  joy.  Oh,  my  dear  Forster,  if 
I  were  to  say  half  of  what  Copperfield  makes 
me  feel  to-night,  how  strangely,  even  to  you, 
I  should  be  turned  inside  out  I  I  seem  to  be 
sending  some  part  of  myself  into  the  Shadowy 
World." 

The  intense  reality  of  the  book  for  Dickens 
is  revealed  in  his  original  preface :  — 

"  I  do  not  fmd  it  easy  to  get  sufficiently  far 
away  from  this  Book,  in  the  first  sensations  of 
having  finished  it,  to  refer  to  it  with  the  com- 
posure which  this  formal  heading  would  seem 
to  require.  My  interest  in  it,  is  so  recent  and 
strong ;  and  my  mind  is  so  divided  between 
pleasure  and  regret  —  pleasure  in  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  long  design,  regret  in  the  separa- 
tion from  many  companions  —  that  I  am  in 
danger  of  wearying  the  reader  whom  I  love, 
with  personal  confidences  and  private  emo- 
tions. .  .  . 

"  It  would  concern  the  reader  little,  perhaps, 
to  know  how  sorrowfully  the  pen  is  laid  down 
at  the  close  of  a  two  years'  imaginative  task ; 
or  how  an  Author  feels  as  if  he  were  dismiss- 
ing some  portion  of  himself  into  the  shadowy 
world,  when  a  crowd  of  the  creatures  of  his 

[77] 


brain  are  going  from  him  for  ever.  Yet,  I 
have  nothing  else  to  tell ;  unless,  indeed,  1  were 
to  confess  (which  might  be  of  less  moment 
still)  that  no  one  can  ever  believe  this  Narra- 
tive, in  the  reading,  more  than  I  have  believed 
it  in  the  writing."  **0f  all  my  books,  I  like 
this  the  best.  It  will  be  easily  believed  that 
I  am  a  fond  parent  to  every  child  of  my  fancy, 
and  that  no  one  can  ever  love  that  family  as 
dearly  as  I  love  them.  But,  like  many  fond 
parents,  I  have  in  my  heart  of  hearts  a  favorite 
child.    And  his  name  is  David  Copperfield." 

That  David  and  Dora  marry  and  that  Dora 
dies  militate  in  no  way  against  the  declaration 
of  Forster,  and  Dickens'  own  repeated  asser- 
tions, that  Dora  sprang  from  an  original  in  his 
own  experience.  The  changes  are  but  those 
of  the  trained  story-teller  properly  regardful 
both  of  the  eternal  unwillingness  of  the  pub- 
lic to  part  any  sooner  than  is  absolutely  nec- 
essary with  the  characters  it  has  come  to  feel 
interested  in,  and  his  own  purposes  in  tracing 
the  development  of  his  hero,  David.  How  un- 
willingly he  yielded  to  the  imperative  demands 
of  his  underlying  purpose  in  the  story  is  shown 
by  the  following:  Forster  says,  "His  principal 
hesitation  occurred  in  connection  with  the 

[78] 


child-wife  Dora,  who  had  become  a  great  fa- 
vorite as  he  went  on."  On  the  seventh  of  May 
Dickens  wrote:  "Still  undecided  about  Dora, 
but  must  decide  today  " ;  yet  on  the  twentieth 
of  the  following  August  he  could  add :  **  I 
have  been  very  hard  at  work  these  three  days, 
and  have  still  Dora  to  kill.  But  with  good 
luck  I  may  do  it  tomorrow." 

An  experience  which  gave  Dickens  several 
figures  in  his  early  sketches,  and  suggested 
others,  like  Miss  Mills ;  which  opened  to  him 
a  complete  understanding  of  the  passionate 
moods  of  Headstone,  Pip,  and  David,  and  gave 
him  a  large  part  of  his  material  for  David 
Copperfield  itself ;  which,  in  brief,  as  man  and 
as  writer,  matured  and  developed  him  greatly, 
is  worthy  to  be  recorded.  The  personality  of 
Dickens  as  it  shows  itself  in  these  early  let- 
ters and  verses  is,  moreover,  such  as  greatly 
to  increase  the  interest  of  this  record. 

There  are,  however,  even  in  the  novels  of 
Dickens  himself,  few  more  dramatic  coinci- 
dences than  this  love  story  offers.  It  sounds 
like  one  of  the  author's  own  imaginings ;  that 
twenty-two  years  after  his  parting  with  Miss 
Beadnell  a  letter  should  one  day  open  afresh, 
for  both  Dickens  and  Miss  Beadnell  his  long 

[79] 


hidden  romance.  She  had  married,  February 
2S,  184^,  Henry  Louis  Winter,  a  business 
man  in  comfortable  circumstances  at  the  time  of 
this  renewing  of  the  correspondence.  Dickens, 
married  then  for  some  nineteen  years  and  the 
father  of  a  family  of  nine,  had  already  won  a 
high  position  in  the  literary  world.  The  letter 
in  question  chanced,  dramatically  enough,  to 
reach  him  just  when  his  mind  was  full  of  the 
memories  that  any  re-reading  by  him  of  David 
Copperfield  must  arouse.  On  Jan.  29, 18^^,  he 
wrote  to  his  friend,  Arthur  Ryland:  "I  have 
been  poring  over  'Copperfield' (which  is  my 
favourite)  with  the  idea  of  getting  a  reading 
out  of  it,  to  be  called  by  some  such  name  as 
'Young  Housekeeping  and  Little  Emily.' "  The 
words  of  the  answer  of  Dickens  to  Mrs.  Win- 
ter's first  letter  may  best  describe  the  renewal 
of  the  correspondence.  — 

Tavistock  House, 
Saturday,  Tenth  February,  1855- 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,  — I  constantly  receive  hun- 
dreds of  letters  in  great  varieties  of  writing,  all  perfectly 
strange  to  me,  and  (as  you  may  suppose)  have  no 
particular  interest  in  the  faces  of  such  general  epistles. 
As  I  was  reading  by  my  fire  last  night,  a  handful  of 
notes  was  laid  down  on  my  table.    I  looked  them  over, 

[80] 


DORA  SPENLOW  and  DAVID    COPPERFIELD 

(MARIA  BEADNELLL  and  CHARLES  DICKENS) 

Etching  by  W.  H.  W.  Bicknell,  after  painting 
by  J.  A.  ^Af^ILLIAMS,  specially  for  The  Bibliophile 
Society.  The  central  figure  is  from  Mr.  Bicknell' s 
own  sketch  of  **  Dora." 


mil 


Qwiard^iaqqoo  uivau  one  wojwas8  ahou 

ianaxoiG  dajMAHO  fane  jjjaviaAaa  AiHAr/i) 

anitnisq/iaJlB  .JJaviHDia  .W  .H  .\/V  yd  gnirioja 
•jfrrfqoiidia    sriT   lot  yllBioaqa  ,8MAlJaiW  .A  .J^  yd 


rpivp  h!in 


As 

vli  Oil 


'"«'.k, 


■■k«.» , 


Jaw,  Hi,  :.  s 


»  »     »         > 

>        3  >     >  J  >     9 


Jo  -^^itot  hC*>.-  cCp- 


•X    t-t.-**V.^i.-vo^      t^CCKtJt.it^ 


A. 


^ 


■;iC  crdif/  /i*rvvdv' 


DAVID   COPPERFIELD. 


and,  recognizing  the  writing  of  no  private  friend,  let 
them  lie  there,  and  went  back  to  my  book.  But  I  found 
my  mind  curiously  disturbed,  and  wandering  away 
through  so  many  years  to  such  early  times  of  my  life, 
that  I  was  quite  perplexed  to  account  for  it.  There  was 
nothing  in  what  I  had  been  reading,  or  immediately 
thinking  about,  to  awaken  such  a  train  of  thought,  and 
at  last  it  came  into  my  head  that  it  must  have  been  sug- 
gested by  something  in  the  look  of  one  of  those  letters. 
So  I  turned  them  over  again,  —  and  suddenly  the  re- 
membrance of  your  hand  came  upon  me  with  an  influ- 
ence that  I  cannot  express  to  you.  Three  or  four  and 
twenty  years  vanished  like  a  dream,  and  I  opened  it  with 
the  touch  of  my  young  friend  David  Copperfield  when 
he  was  in  love.  — 

There  was  something  so  busy  and  so  pleasant  in  your 
letter  —  so  true  and  cheerful  and  frank  and  affectionate 
—  that  I  read  on  with  perfect  delight  until  I  came  to 
your  mention  of  your  two  little  girls.  In  the  unsettled 
state  of  my  thoughts,  the  existence  of  these  dear  children 
appeared  such  a  prodigious  phenomenon,  that  I  was  in- 
clined to  suspect  myself  of  being  out  of  my  mind,  until  it 
occurred  to  me  that  perhaps  I  had  nine  children  of  my 
own !  Then  the  three  or  four  and  twenty  years  began 
to  rearrange  themselves  in  a  long  procession  between  me 
and  the  changeless  Past,  and  1  could  not  help  considering 
what  strange  stuff  all  our  little  stories  are  made  of. 

Believe  me,  you  cannot  more  tenderly  remember  our 
old  days  and  our  old  friends  than  1  do.  1  hardly  ever 
go  into  the  City  but  I  walk  up  an  odd  little  court  at  the 
back  of  the  Mansion  House  and  come  out  by  the  comer 

181] 


of  Lombard  Street.^  Hundreds  of  times  as  1  have  passed 
the  church  there  —  on  my  way  to  and  from  the  Sea,  the 
Continent,  and  where  not  —  I  invariably  associate  it  with 
somebody  (God  knows  who)  having  told  me  that  poor 
Anne '  was  buried  there.  If  you  would  like  to  examine 
me  in  the  name  of  a  good-looking  Cornish  servant  you 
used  to  have  (1  suppose  she  has  twenty-nine  great  grand- 
children now,  and  walks  with  a  stick),  you  will  find  my 
knowledge  on  the  point  correct,  though  it  was  a  mon- 
strous name  too.  I  forget  nothing  of  those  times.  They 
are  just  as  still  and  plain  and  clear  as  if  I  had  never  been 
in  a  crowd  since,  and  had  never  seen  or  heard  my  own 
name  out  of  my  own  house.  What  should  I  be  worth, 
or  what  would  labour  and  success  be  worth,  if  it  were 
otherwise ! 

Your  letter  is  more  touching  to  me  from  its  good 
and  gentle  association  with  the  state  of  Spring  in  which 
I  was  either  much  more  wise  or  much  more  foolish  than 
I  am  now  —  I  never  know  which  to  think  it  —  than  I 
could  tell  you  if  I  tried  for  a  week.  I  will  not  try  at  all. 
I  heartily  respond  to  it,  and  shall  be  charmed  to  have  a 
long  talk  with  you,  and  most  cordially  glad  to  see  you 
after  all  this  length  of  time. 

I  am  going  to  Paris  to-morrow  morning,  but  I  pur- 
pose being  back  within  a  fortnight.  When  1  return,  Mrs. 
Dickens  will  come  to  you,  to  arrange  a  day  for  our  see- 
ing you  and  Mr.  Winter  (to  whom  I  beg  to  be  remem- 
bered) quietly  to  dinner.  We  will  have  no  intruder  or 
foreign  creature  on  any  pretence  whatever,  in  order  that 

^  One  of  their  old  trysting  places. 

*  Her  sister;  she  married  the  early  friend  of  Dickens,  Henry 
KuUe. 

[82] 


we  may  set  in  without  any  restraint  for  a  tremendous 
gossip. 

Mary  Ann  Leigh  ^  we  saw  at  Broadstairs  about  fifty 
years  ago.  Mrs.  Dickens  and  her  sister,  who  read  all 
the  marriages  in  all  the  papers,  shrieked  to  me  when 
the  announcement  of  hers  appeared,  what  did  I  think 
of  that?  I  calmly  replied  that  I  thought  it  was 
time.  I  should  have  been  more  excited  if  I  had 
known  of  the  old  gentleman  with  several  thousand  a 
year,  uncountable  grown-up  children,  and  no  English 
grammar. 

My  mother  has  a  strong  objection  to  being  considered 
in  the  least  old,  and  usually  appears  here  on  Christmas 
Day  in  a  juvenile  cap,^  which  takes  an  immense  time  in 
the  putting  on.  The  Fates  seem  to  have  made  up  their 
minds  that  I  shall  never  see  your  Father  when  he  comes 
this  way.  David  Lloyd  is  altogether  an  impostor  —  not 
having  in  the  least  changed  (that  I  could  make  out  when  I 
saw  him  at  the  London  Tavern)  since  what  I  suppose  to 
have  been  the  year  1 770,  when  I  found  you  three '  on 
Cornhill,  with  your  poor  mother,  going  to  St.  Mary  Axe 
to  order  mysterious  dresses  —  which  afterwards  turned 
out  to  be  wedding  garments.  That  was  in  the  remote 
period  when  you  all  wore  green  cloaks,  cut  (in  my  re- 
membrance) very  round,  and  which  I  am  resolved  to  be- 

1  Married,  Nov.  14,  1854,  to  Mr.  William  Back. 

2  This  confirms  the  popular  supposition  that  Mrs.  Dickens  was 
the  original  of  Mrs,  Nickleby;  her  juvenile  airs  and  fondness 
for  her  caps  are  specially  noted  in  the  novel. 

*  Apparently  Margaret,  Anne  and  Maria  Beadnell,  going  to  ar- 
range for  dresses  for  the  wedding  of  Margaret  with  David  Lloyd. 
It  took  place  April  20,  l83i. 

[83] 


lieve  were  made  of  Merino.  I  escorted  you  with  native 
gallantry  to  the  Dress  Maker's  door,  and  your  mother, 
seized  with  an  apprehension  —  groundless  upon  my 
honor  —  that  I  might  come  in,  said  emphatically:  "And 
now  Mr.  Dickin  "  —  which  she  always  used  to  call  me 
—  "  we  '11  wish^'OM  good  morning." 

When  I  was  writing  the  word  Paris  ^  just  now,  I  re- 
membered that  my  existence  was  once  entirely  uprooted 
and  my  whole  Being  blighted  by  the  Angel  of  my  soul 
being  sent  there  to  finish  her  education !  If  I  can  dis- 
charge any  little  commission  for  you,  or  bring  home 
anything  for  the  darlings,  whom  I  cannot  yet  believe  to 
be  anything  but  a  delusion  of  yours,  pray  employ  me. 
I  shall  be  at  the  H6tel  Meurice  —  locked  up  when  within, 
as  my  only  defence  against  my  country  and  the  United 
States  —  but  a  most  punctual  and  reliable  functionary  if 
you  will  give  me  any  employment. 

My  Dear  Mrs.  Winter,  I  have  been  much  moved  by 
your  letter ;  and  the  pleasure  it  has  given  me  has  some 
little  sorrowful  ingredient  in  it.  In  the  strife  and  struggle 
of  this  great  world  where  most  of  us  lose  each  other  so 
strangely,  it  is  impossible  to  be  spoken  to  out  of  the  old 
times  without  a  softened  emotion.  You  so  belong  to  the 
days  when  the  qualities  that  have  done  me  most  good 
since,  were  growing  in  my  boyish  heart  that  I  cannot 
end  my  answer  to  you  lightly.  The  associations  my 
memory  has  with  you  make  your  letter  more — I  want 
a  word  —  invest  it  with  a  more  immediate  address  to 
me  than  such  a  letter  could  have  from  anybody  else. 
Mr.  Winter  will  not  mind  that.    We  are  all  sailing  away 

1  "  Dora  "  was  sent  to  Paris  to  finish  her  education. 
[84] 


to  the  sea,  and  have  a  pleasure  in  thinking  of  the  river 
we  are  upon,  when  it  was  very  narrow  and  little. 
Faithfully  your  friend, 

Charles  Dickens 

This  is,  of  course,  only  the  cordial  letter  of  a 
man  who,  when  a  figure  from  the  past  emerges 
unexpectedly,  —  a  figure  that  once  had  done 
much  to  develop  in  him  the  qualities  which 
had  done  him  "most  good  since,"  —  was 
pleased  and  even  deeply  touched  at  the  inter- 
est shown  after  the  lapse  of  years.  This  voice 
from  the  past  aroused  within  him  a  train  of 
long  cherished  memories ;  and  when  one  con- 
siders the  intensity  of  his  feelings  on  this  mat- 
ter, and  the  vividness  of  his  recollections,  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  that  the  re-opening  of  the  cor- 
respondence was  productive  of  many  thrilling 
sensations. 

The  next  letter  from  Mrs.  Winter  was  evi- 
dently more  intimate  in  tone.  How  could  it 
fail  to  be?  A  very  famous  man,  once  her  lover, 
had  not  only  told  her  in  friendliest  fashion  how 
much  she  had  once  meant  to  him,  but — far 
subtler  compliment  —  had  shown  a  remarkable 
memory  for  small  details  of  their  former  asso- 
ciation. Her  second  letter  brings  a  reply  which 
must  have  gratified  her  keenly;  a  reply,  in 

[85] 


its  detailed  statement  of  the  influence  of  this 
long  past  love  affair  on  his  life  and  on  David 
Copperfield  in  particular,  which  makes  the 
letter  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  student 
of  Dickens. — 

H6tel  Meurice,  Paris, 
Thursday,  Fifteenth  February,  185S. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,—  (I  had  half  a  mind,  when 
1  dipped  my  pen  in  the  ink,  to  address  you  by  your  old 
natural  Christian  name.) 

The  snow  lies  so  deep  on  the  Northern  Railway,  and 
the  Posts  have  been  so  interrupted  in  consequence,  that 
your  charming  note  arrived  here  only  this  morning.  I 
reply  by  return  of  post  —  with  a  general  idea  that  Sarah  ^ 
will  come  to  Finsbury  Place  with  a  basket  and  a  face  of 
good-humoured  compassion,  and  carry  the  letter  away, 
and  leave  me  as  desolate  as  she  used  to  do. 

I  got  the  heartache  again  when  I  read  your  commis- 
sion, written  in  the  hand  which  I  find  now  to  be  not  in 
the  least  changed,  and  yet  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  be 
entrusted  with  it,  and  to  have  that  share  in  your  gentler 
remembrances  which  1  cannot  find  it  still  my  privilege  to 
have  without  a  stirring  of  the  old  fancies.  I  need  not 
tell  you  that  it  shall  be  executed  to  the  letter  —  with  as 
much  interest  as  I  once  matched  a  little  pair  of  gloves  for 
you  which  I  recollect  were  blue  ones.  (I  wonder  whether 
people  generally  wore  blue  gloves  when  I  was  nineteen, 
or  whether  it  was  only  you !)     I  am  very,  very  sorry 

1  Evidently  the  Cornish  servant,  spoken  of  in  the  last  letter. 
Mrs.  Winter  lived  in  Finsbury  Square. 

[86] 


you  mistrusted  me  in  not  writing  before  your  little  girl 
was  bom ;  but  I  hope  now  you  know  me  better  you  will 
teach  her,  one  day,  to  tell  her  children,  in  times  to  come 
when  they  may  have  some  interest  in  wondering  about 
it,  that  I  loved  her  mother  with  the  most  extraordinary 
earnestness  when  I  was  a  boy. 

I  have  always  believed  since,  and  always  shall  to  the 
last,  that  there  never  was  such  a  faithful  and  devoted 
poor  fellow  as  I  was.  Whatever  of  fancy,  romance, 
energy,  passion,  aspiration  and  determination  belong  to 
me,  1  never  have  separated  and  never  shall  separate  from 
the  hard-hearted  little  woman  —  you  —  whom  it  is  noth- 
ing to  say  I  would  have  died  for,  with  the  greatest 
alacrity !  I  never  can  think,  and  1  never  seem  to  observe, 
that  other  young  people  are  in  such  desperate  earnest  or 
set  so  much,  so  long,  upon  one  absorbing  hope.  It  is  a 
matter  of  perfect  certainty  to  me  that  1  began  to  fight 
my  way  out  of  poverty  and  obscurity,  with  one  per- 
petual idea  of  you.  This  is  so  fixed  in  my  knowledge 
that  to  the  hour  when  I  opened  your  letter  last  Friday 
night,  I  have  never  heard  anybody  addressed  by  your 
name,  or  spoken  of  by  your  name,  without  a  start.  The 
sound  of  it  has  always  filled  me  with  a  kind  of  pity  and 
respect  for  the  deep  truth  that  1  had,  in  my  silly  hobble - 
dehoyhood,  to  bestow  upon  one  creature  who  repre- 
sented the  whole  world  to  me.  I  have  never  been  so 
good  a  man  since,  as  1  was  when  you  made  me  wretchedly 
happy.     1  shall  never  be  half  so  good  a  fellow  any  more. 

This  is  all  so  strange  now  both  to  think  of,  and  to  say, 
after  every  change  that  has  come  about ;  but  1  think, 
when  you  ask  me  to  write  to  you,  you  are  not  unpre- 

[S7] 


pared  for  what  it  is  so  natural  to  me  to  recall,  and  will 
not  be  displeased  to  read  it.  1  fancy,  —  though  you 
may  not  have  thought  in  the  old  time  how  manfully  I 
loved  you  —  that  you  may  have  seen  in  one  of  my  books 
a  faithful  reflection  of  the  passion  1  had  for  you,  and 
may  have  thought  that  it  was  something  to  have  been 
loved  so  well,  and  may  have  seen  in  little  bits  of  "  Dora  " 
touches  of  your  old  self  sometimes,  and  a  grace  here  and 
there  that  may  be  revived  in  your  little  girls,  years  hence, 
for  the  bewilderment  of  some  other  young  lover  — 
though  he  will  never  be  as  terribly  in  earnest  as  I  and 
David  Copperfleld  were.  People  used  to  say  to  me  how 
pretty  all  that  was,  and  how  fanciful  it  was,  and  how 
elevated  it  was  above  the  little  foolish  loves  of  very 
young  men  and  women.  But  they  little  thought  what 
reason  I  had  to  know  it  was  true  and  nothing  more  nor 
less. 

These  are  things  that  I  have  locked  up  in  my  own 
breast,  and  that  1  never  thought  to  bring  out  any  more. 
But  when  1  find  myself  writing  to  you  again  "  all  to 
yourself,"  how  can  1  forbear  to  let  as  much  light  in  upon 
them  as  will  shew  you  that  they  are  there  still !  If  the 
most  innocent,  the  most  ardent,  and  the  most  disinter- 
ested days  of  my  life  had  you  for  their  Sun  —  as  indeed 
they  had  —  and  if  1  know  that  the  Dream  I  lived  in  did 
me  good,  refined  my  heart,  and  made  me  patient  and 
persevering,  and  if  the  Dream  were  all  of  you  —  as  God 
knows  it  was  —  how  can  1  receive  a  confidence  from  you, 
and  return  it,  and  make  a  feint  of  blotting  all  this  out ! 

As  I  have  said,  1  fancy  that  you  know  all  about  it 
quite  as  well  as  I  do,  however.    I  have  a  strong  belief 

[88] 


—  there  is  no  harm  in  adding  hope  to  that  —  that  per- 
haps you  have  once  or  twice  laid  down  that  book,  and 
thought,  "  How  dearly  that  boy  must  have  loved  me, 
and  how  vividly  this  man  remembers  it ! " 

I  shall  be  here  until  Tuesday  or  Wednesday.  If  the 
snow  allows  this  letter  to  come  to  you  in  the  meantime, 
perhaps  it  would  allow  one  to  come  to  me,  "  all  to  my- 
self," if  you  were  to  try  it.  A  number  of  recollections 
came  into  my  head  when  I  began,  and  1  meant  to  have 
gone  through  a  string  of  them  and  to  have  asked  you  if 
they  lived  in  your  mind  too.  But  they  all  belong  to  the 
one  I  have  indulged  in  —  half  pleasantly,  half  painfully 

—  and  are  all  swallowed  up  in  that,  so  let  them  go. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter, 

Ever  affectionately  yours, 
Charles  Dickens 
[P.  S.]  I  wonder  what  has  become  of  a  bundle  of  let- 
ters I  sent  you  back  once  (according  to  order)  tied  with 
a  blue  ribbon,  of  the  color  of  the  gloves ! 

This  second  letter,  full  of  sentiment  and 
tender  recollections  of  the  past,  must  have 
read  for  Mrs.  Winter  very  much  like  a  love 
letter.  She  has  spoken  of  having  a  letter  "  all 
to  myself,"  and  he  writes  frankly,  movedly,  as 
he  recalls  the  past,  closing  with  a  request  for 
an  answer  **  all  to  myself."  Surely  this  seems 
like  dangerous  ground  and  drifting  rapidly 
away  from  the  region  of  calm,  common-sense 
middle-age.    Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  how  all  this 

[89] 


could  have  been  written  without  any  intention 
of  bringing  as  warm  a  reply  as  it  doubtless 
called  forth. 

Full  of  memories  of  his  youth  from  a  recent 
re-reading  of  David  Copperfield,  Dickens  is 
suddenly  confronted  by  a  figure  out  of  this 
very  past.  The  figure  speaks  to  him  in  words 
of  unmistakable  interest  and  kindliness.  What 
wonder,  with  the  pleasant  reverses  Time  has 
brought  in  their  relative  positions  clearly  be- 
fore him,  that  he  should  fall  to  mulling  over 
even  the  smallest  details  of  that  early  associa- 
tion !  What  wonder,  when  his  persistent  atti- 
tude of  keenest  pity  toward  his  youth  and  his 
skill  as  a  narrator  are  remembered,  that  the 
letter  which  flows  from  his  pen  as  he  thinks 
should  seem  to  the  recipient  almost  a  new 
declaration  of  abiding  affection  1  As  the  man 
of  family  and  wide  literary  reputation,  hedged 
in  by  all  the  social  barriers,  he  writes  to  a 
woman  supposedly  well  settled  in  life,  and 
happy.  His  pen  runs  away  with  him,  and, 
presto,  he  has  written  something  very  like  a 
love  letter,  when  it  was  meant  only  for  as  defi- 
nite as  possible  a  picture  of  the  emotions  of 
the  past.  To  Mrs.  Winter  those  words  about  a 
letter  "  all  to  myself "  were  fairly  and  squarely 

[90] 


an  invitation  to  answer  him  as  frankly.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  her  reply  told  for  the 
first  time  her  view  of  her  conduct  at  the  date 
of  the  painful  breaking  off  between  them. 

The  words  of  the  next  letter  of  Dickens,  — 
"  How  it  all  happened  as  it  did,  we  shall  never 
know  on  this  side  of  Time ;  but  if  you  had 
ever  told  me  then  what  you  tell  me  now,  I 
know  myself  well  enough  to  be  thoroughly 
assured  that  the  simple  truth  and  energy  which 
were  in  my  love  would  have  overcome  every- 
thing," bear  out  the  editor's  earlier  surmise 
that  Maria  Beadnell's  parents  had  regarded 
Dickens  as  by  no  means  a  desirable  suitor  on 
account  of  his  poverty,  family  troubles,  and 
impulsiveness.  There  is  support  for  this  the- 
ory, too,  in  the  words,  "  I  have  never  blamed 
you  at  all,  but  I  have  believed  until  now  that 
you  never  had  the  stake  in  that  serious  game 
which  1  had." 

Had  the  last  letter  of  Mrs.  Winter  given  him 
permission  to  use  her  Christian  name,  as  in 
his  preceding  letter  he  had  thought  of  doing  ? 
The  exuberance  of  emotion  and  the  intimacy 
of  this  letter  —  the  last  before  his  disenchant- 
ment—  are  perhaps  unparalleled  in  anything 
that  ever  fell  from  his  pen:  — 

[91] 


Tavistock  House, 
Thursday,  Twenty-second  February,  1855. 

My  dear  Maria, — The  old  writing  is  so  plain  to  me^ 
that  1  have  read  your  letter  with  great  ease  (though  it  is 
just  a  little  crossed) ,  and  have  not  lost  a  word  of  it.  1 
was  obliged  to  leave  Paris  on  Tuesday  morning  before  the 
Post  came  in ;  but  I  took  such  precautions  to  prevent 
the  possibility  of  any  mischance,  that  the  letter  came 
close  behind  me.  I  arrived  at  home  last  night,  and  it 
followed  me  this  morning.  No  one  but  myself  has  the 
slightest  knowledge  of  my  correspondence,  I  may  add,  in 
this  place.  I  could  be  nowhere  addressed  with  stricter 
privacy  or  in  more  absolute  confidence  than  at  my  own 
house. 

Ah !  Though  it  is  so  late  to  read  in  the  old  hand  what 
I  never  read  before,  I  have  read  it  with  great  emotion, 
and  with  the  old  tenderness  softened  to  a  more  sorrowful 
remembrance  than  I  could  easily  tell  you.  How  it  all 
happened  as  it  did,  we  shall  never  know  on  this  side  of 
Time ;  but  if  you  had  ever  told  me  then  what  you  tell 
me  now,  I  know  myself  well  enough  to  be  thoroughly 
assured  that  the  simple  truth  and  energy  which  were  in 
my  love  would  have  overcome  everything.  I  remember 
well  that  long  after  I  came  of  age  —  1  say  long  ;  well !  It 
seemed  long  then  ^  —  I  wrote  to  you  for  the  last  time  of 
all,  with  a  dawn  upon  me  of  some  sensible  idea  that 
we  were  changing  into  man  and  woman,  saying  would 
you  forget  our  little  differences  and  separations  and  let 
us  begin  again  ?  You  answered  me  very  coldly  and 
reproachfully,  —  and  so  I  went  my  way. 

1  As  the  letter  given  on  pp.  57-59  shows,  it  was  three  months  after 
he  became  of  age. 

[92] 


''""'' ''^ '"•■^  "•'^•-^    *\^^t'  'Ui^M  u-^'tvt'      -^"^  -u-i-z/A-^  .'^' 


"l.^TUC      ^^r*Uci  4.0^4.  .^*v<:^f>,v<-.  fW*^/£^.       -'t^**^.,^><«>t  -f-/^-* 

■^'^z^*.^  /Vvw*  ^.^,^    ^^  ^^^'  ^.uJ^  .' r^  o^-^w*,^  ?ic^» 


tiiW's^rt.^  ~.^*^V    '^**tV  t'Vl^    ^.^<^^     •^«^--y  HfO^^    '^1-*'  /'^^v^^e^  Jt 

-^-^r^r /VH^  .,/t;^  J/^  u  ^^.^'^  ir^Ju  u^  ^  y,,.,^ 


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k.«t*vN   i?   K  Cir^i'c4^i^.u,  UA-t^^i  -V-vi.,- y^/,<!»^  ^'  z„,,^:^j^/^"^ 

^  y^  >y.,..^  -i^^,^  j:^^  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  .^ 
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a 


But  nobody  can  ever  know  with  what  a  sad  heart  I 
resigned  you,  or  after  what  struggles  and  what  a  conflict. 
My  entire  devotion  to  you,  and  the  wasted  tenderness  of 
those  hard  years  which  I  have  ever  since  half  loved,  half 
dreaded  to  recall,  made  so  deep  an  impression  on  me 
that  I  refer  to  it  a  habit  of  suppression  which  now  be- 
longs to  me,  which  I  know  is  no  part  of  my  original 
nature,  but  which  makes  me  chary  of  showing  my  affec- 
tions, even  to  my  children,  except  when  they  are  very 
young.  A  few  years  ago  (just  before  Copperfield)  1  began 
to  write  my  life,  intending  the  manuscript  to  be  found 
among  my  papers  when  its  subject  should  be  concluded. 
But  as  I  began  to  approach  within  sight  of  that  part  of 
it,  I  lost  courage  and  burned  the  rest.  I  have  never 
blamed  you  at  alV  but  I  have  believed  until  now  that 
you  never  had  the  stake  in  that  serious  game  which  I 
had. 

All  this  mist  passes  away  upon  your  earnest  words ; 
and  when  I  find  myself  to  have  been  in  your  mind  at 
that  thoughtful  crisis  in  your  life  which  you  so  unaf- 
fectedly and  feelingly  describe,  I  am  quite  subdued  and 
strangely  enlightened.  When  poor  Fanny '^  died  (I  think 
she  always  knew  that  I  never  could  bear  to  hear  of  you 
as  of  any  common  person)  we  were  out  of  town,  and  I 
never  heard  of  your  having  been  in  Devonshire  Terrace 

1  Compare  this  with  the  following  passage  in  Little  Dorrit,  —  the 
dialogue  between  Arthur  Clennam  and  Flora  Pinching :  "  I  can't, 
Arthur,"  returned  Flora, "  be  denounced  as  heartless  .  .  .  without 
setting  myself  right,"  etc.  "  My  dear  Mrs.  Finching,  you  were 
not  to  blame,  and  I  have  never  blamed  you.  We  were  both  too 
young,  too  dependent  and  helpless  to  do  anything  but  accept  our 
separation." 

^  His  sister,  who  died  in  1848. 

[93] 


—  least  of  all  in  my  room !  I  never  heard  of  you  in  asso- 
ciation with  that  time  until  I  read  your  letter  to-day.  I 
could  not,  however,  —  really  could  not  —  at  any  time 
within  these  nineteen  years,  have  been  so  unmindful  of 
my  old  truth,  and  have  so  set  my  old  passion  aside,  as  to 
talk  to  you  like  a  person  in  any  ordinary  relation  towards 
me.  And  this  I  think  is  the  main  reason  on  my  side  why 
the  few  opportunities  that  there  have  been  of  our  seeing 
one  another  again  have  died  out. 

All  this  again  you  have  changed  and  set  right  — at 
once  so  courageously,  so  delicately  and  gently,  that  you 
open  the  way  to  a  confidence  between  us  which  still  once 
more,  in  perfect  innocence  and  good  faith,  may  be  be- 
tween ourselves  alone.  All  that  you  propose,  I  accept 
with  my  whole  heart.  Whom  can  you  ever  trust  if  it  be 
not  your  old  lover !  Lady  Olliflfe  asked  me  in  Paris  the 
other  day  (we  are,  in  our  way,  confidential  you  must 
know)  whether  it  was  really  true  that  I  used  to  love 
Maria  Beadnell  so  very,  very,  very  much  ?  I  told  her 
that  there  was  no  woman  in  the  world,  and  there  were 
very  few  men,  who  could  ever  imagine  how  much. 

You  are  always  the  same  in  my  remembrance.  When 
you  say  you  are  "  toothless,  fat,  old,  and  ugly  "  (which  I 
don't  believe),  I  fly  away  to  the  house  in  Lombard 
Street,  which  is  pulled  down,  as  if  it  were  necessary  that 
the  very  bricks  and  mortar  should  go  the  way  of  my  airy 
castles,  and  see  you  in  a  sort  of  raspberry  colored  dress 
with  a  little  black  trimming  at  the  top  —  black  velvet  it 
seems  to  be  made  of  —  cut  into  Vandykes  —  an  immense 
number  of  Vandykes — with  my  boyish  heart  pinned  like 
a  captured  butterfly  on  every  one  of  them.    I  have  never 

[  94  ] 


MARIA  BEADNELL  WINTER 

(The  original  of  Dora  in  David  Copperfield, 
and  of  Flora  in  LITTLE  Dorrit). 

Born,  1811 ;  died,  September  30,  1886. 

Engraved  by  J.  A.  J.  \A^lLCOX,  from  a  daguerre- 
otype taken,  perhaps,  between  1855  and  i860. 


:r  heard  f^^  '^''"'  >•■ 
i^  your  i 
illy  could  not  — it  any  time 
s,  have  been  so  unmindful  of 
so  set  my  old  passion  aside,  as  to 
1  in  any  ordinary  Is 

s  the  main  reason  on  wiiy 

at  there  have  been  ot  uu*  ^.eeing 
/vv  died  out. 

uu  have  rhnnrred  and  set  rig^ht  — at 
on  '.  ?o  H  y  and  gently,  that  you 

op  :e  between  us  which  still  once 

tr  and  good  faith,  may  be  be- 

tW'  \e.     A  you  propose,  I  accept 

w         ^aTm^,,^I  Ji^lrJ,UA4^yAf^#«rust  if  it  be 
,aJ3i^HaqqoO  (hvaG  n\  E^btil  io  Isnisi^o  biriB^is  the 

.(  rmaoa  3JTTI.J  rtirifinol'^'lo  htusi 

.d88i  ,o£  ladmaJqi^g  ,b9itt  ;  1181  .moa'   i:u'c 

..,-i-»''»r,oc55  e  moil  ,XOOJIW  .\  .A  .\^  ^^d  tiavBi^rfTdiJ  her 

o58i  bnR  ??8i  rtaf5wtr?d  ,5»aeri^ftr^  ^rtdjtef-^ytBse 

aw  much. 

n 

.which  I 

a  Lombard 

c  necessary  that 

way  of  my  airy 

..ly  colored  dress 

op  —  black  velvet  it 

set ;  J  Vandykes  —  an  immense 

ni:  ;h  my  boyish  h 

a  capturt.  -y  one  of  t^  t 


0.  A 


seen  a  girl  play  the  harp,  from  that  day  to  this,  but  my 
attention  has  been  instantly  arrested,  and  that  drawing 
room  has  stood  before  me  so  plainly  that  1  could  write 
a  most  accurate  description  of  it.  I  remember  that  there 
used  to  be  a  tendency  in  your  eyebrows  to  join  together ; 
and  sometimes  in  the  most  unlikely  places  —  in  Scotland, 
America,  Italy  —  on  the  stateliest  occasions  and  the  most 
unceremonious  — •  when  1  have  been  talking  to  a  strange 
face  and  have  observed  even  such  a  slight  association  as 
this  in  it,  I  have  suddenly  been  carried  away  at  the  rate 
of  a  thousand  miles  a  second,  and  have  thought  "  Maria 
Beadnell  1 "  ^  When  we  were  falling  off  from  each  other, 
I  came  from  the  House  of  Commons  many  a  night  at 
two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  only  to  wander  past 
the  place  you  were  asleep  in.  And  I  have  gone  over  that 
ground  within  these  twelve  months,^  hoping  it  was  not 
ungrateful  to  consider  whether  any  reputation  the  world 
can  bestow  is  repayment  to  a  man  for  the  loss  of  such  a 
vision  of  his  youth  as  mine.  You  ask  me  to  treasure 
what  you  tell  me,  in  my  heart  of  hearts.  O  see  what 
I  have  cherished  there,  through  all  this  time  and  all  these 
changes ! 

In  the  course  of  Saturday  I  will  write  to  you  at  Artil- 
lery Place,  sending  the  little  brooches  and  telling  you 
when  Catherine  will  come  —  not  forgetting  the  little  niece, 

1  Dickens  uses  this  tendency  of  his  in  Little  Dorrit,  where  Cien- 
nam  says :  "  Little  more  than  a  week  ago,  at  Marseilles,  the  face  of 
the  pretty  girl  from  whom  he  had  parted  with  regret  had  had  an 
unusual  interest  for  him,  and  a  tender  hold  upon  him,  because  of 
some  resemblance,  real  or  imagined,  to  this  first  face  that  had  soared 
out  of  his  gloomy  life  into  the  bright  glories  of  fancy." 

2  When  writing  Hard  Times. 

[95] 


though  I  don't  expect  her  to  remind  me  of  Somebody  or 
Anybody.  And  now  to  what  I  have  reserved  for  the 
last. 

1  am  a  dangerous  man  to  be  seen  with,  for  so  many 
people  know  me.  At  St.  Paul's,  the  Dean  and  the  whole 
chapter  know  me.  In  Paternoster  Row  of  all  places,^ 
the  very  tiles  and  chimney  pots  know  me.  At  first,  I  a 
little  hesitated  whether  or  no  to  advise  you  to  forego 
that  interview  or  suggest  another  —  principally  because 
what  would  be  very  natural  and  probable  a  fortnight 
hence,^  seems  scarcely  so  probable  now.  Still  I  should 
very  much  like  to  see  you  before  we  meet  when  others 
are  by  —  I  feel  it,  as  it  were,  so  necessary  to  our  being  at 
ease  —  and  unless  I  hear  from  you  to  the  contrary,  you 
may  expect  to  encounter  a  stranger  whom  you  may  sus- 
pect to  be  the  right  person  if  he  wears  a  moustache. 
You  would  not  like  better  to  call  here  on  Sunday,  asking 
first  for  Catherine  and  then  for  me  ?  It  is  almost  a  posi- 
tive certainty  that  there  will  be  no  one  here  but  I,  between 
3  and  4.  I  make  this  suggestion,  knowing  what  odd 
coincidences  take  place  in  streets  when  they  are  not 
wanted  to  happen ;  though  I  know  them  to  be  so  unlikely, 
that  I  should  not  think  of  such  a  thing  if  any  one  but 
you  were  concerned.  If  you  think  you  would  not  like 
to  come  here,  make  no  change.    I  will  come  there. 

I  cannot  trust  myself  to  begin  afresh,  or  I  should  have 
my  remembrances  of  our  separation,  and  think  yours 
hard  to  me.  I  remember  poor  Anne  writing  to  me  once 
(in  answer  to  some  burst  of  low-spirited  madness  of 

1  Because  of  his  connection  as  reporter  with  Doctors'  Commons. 
»  After  Mrs.  Dickens  had  called  and  the  Winters  had  dined  with 
Dickens  and  his  wife. 

[96] 


rl^if^' 


•   ••        • 


mine),  and  saying  "  My  dear  Charles,  I  really  cannot 
understand  Maria,  or  venture  to  take  the  responsibility  of 
saying  what  the  state  of  her  affections  is"  —  and  she 
added,  I  recollect,  God  bless  her,  a  long  quotation  about 
Patience  and  Time.  Well,  well !  It  was  not  to  be  until 
Patience  and  Time  should  bring  us  round  together  thus. 
Remember,  I  accept  all  with  my  whole  soul,  and  recip- 
rocate all. 

Ever  your  affectionate  friend, 

Charles  Dickens 

Some  of  Maria  Beadnell's  old  coquetry  was 
in  that  missing  letter,  plainly,  for  though  she 
writes  of  herself  as  "toothless,  fat,  old,  and 
ugly,"  she  asks  for  an  interview,  unattractive 
and  disillusionizing  as  she  would  be  if  her 
words  were  true.  But  her  portrait  shows  that 
she  was  not  what  she  describes,  only  at  the 
worst  —  except  to  the  eye  that  looked  at  her 
through  the  kindly  lens  of  memory  —  undis- 
tinguishable  from  thousands  of  other  women 
of  the  day. 

The  step  of  Dickens  from  wisdom  in  ask- 
ing for  a  letter  all  to  himself  had  led  to  far 
greater  unwisdom  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Winter. 
In  her  new  request  Dickens  should  have  felt  his 
warning,  for  it  was  foolishly  romantic.  He 
did  recognize  that  for  them  to  meet  by  them- 
selves after  the  Winters  had  been  entertained 

[97] 


at  his  house,  and  new  relations  established, 
would  seem  more  natural  and  fortuitous,  but 
sentiment  owned  him  too.  The  old  friend- 
ship glows  into  rather  surprisingly  strong 
flame  in  those  final  words,  "  Remember,  I  ac- 
cept all  with  my  whole  soul,  and  reciprocate 
all."  On  the  other  hand,  there  must  have 
been  for  Dickens  a  keen  satisfaction,  even  de- 
light, in  the  situation.  Here  was  Maria  Bead- 
nell,  who,  in  playing  fast  and  loose  with  him, 
had  given  him  the  bitterest  experience  of  his 
life,  now,  after  twenty  years,  explaining  away 
her  past  conduct,  and  pressing  her  friendship 
and  even  her  affection  upon  him. 

Whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  Dickens  was 
increasingly  unhappy  in  his  married  life,  and 
now  suddenly  a  dream,  for  years  regarded  as 
only  what  might  have  been,  seemed  to  give 
promise  of  changing  into  the  most  cordial,  the 
most  comprehending  of  friendships.  Satisfied 
vanity,  curiosity,  sentiment,  even  a  persistent 
craving  for  a  companionship  he  did  not  find 
in  his  home,  urged  him  to  the  interview.  But 
like  Bluebeard's  wife,  he  met  with  a  shock  of 
the  severest  kind.  Certainly  he  did  not  find 
that,  as  one  of  our  English  dramatists  has  de- 
clared, the  future  is  but   the  past   entered 

[98] 


through  another  door.     His  disillusionment 
was  dramatic  and  complete. 

After  the  intensity  of  the  preceding  letter, 
that  which  immediately  follows,  friendly  as  it 
is,  sounds  chilling.  Probably,  as  it  is  dated 
but  two  days  after  the  other,  its  tone  is  due 
only  to  the  fact  that,  as  it  accompanied  gifts, 
it  might  well  fall  under  other  eyes  than  those 
of  Mrs.  Winter.  — 

Tavistock  House, 
Saturday,  Twenty-fourth  February,  185S. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter, —  l  have  had  fearful  sus- 
picions on  my  way  home  from  Paris,  that  those  little  bits 
of  velvet  which  are  worn  round  the  neck  ought  to  fasten 
with  a  sort  of  clasp ;  but  the  disinterested  merchant  with 
whom  I  executed  your  commission,  assured  me  that  the 
little  ornaments  I  enclose  were  the  right  things,  and  would 
adjust  such  bits  of  velvet,  **  of  a  manner  very  ravishing." 
He  was  so  rapturous  in  the  expression  1  translate,  —  so 
excessively  voluble  on  the  subject,  and  so  injured  in  his 
honor  by  my  harboring  the  least  doubt,  that  I  meekly 
submitted  to  him. 

So  here  they  are,  right  or  wrong.  The  smaller  one 
with  the  blue  stones,  I  designed  for  your  little  girl ;  the 
other  for  yourself.  You  must  let  me  give  them  to  you. 
They  are  of  no  worth,  except  as  a  remembrance. 

I  should  have  brought  your  baby  a  toy,  but  that  the 
only  packable  toys  I  saw  were  all  hideous  saucer-eyed 
creatures  bursting  out  of  boxes  —  and  dreadful  old  men 
and  women  with  inflamed  noses. 

[99] 


Catherine  proposes  to  come  to  you  on  Tuesday  at  be- 
tween half  past  two  and  three,  when  a  day  must  be 
arranged  for  you  and  Mr.  Winter's  dining  with  us.  And 
while  I  think  of  it,  pray  let  me  expressly  stipulate  for 
your  bringing  Margaret's^  daughter  with  you.  What 
you  say  of  her  makes  me  wish  to  see  her  very  much, 
and  1  should  venture  to  send  my  love  to  her  by  name,  if  I 
could  make  out  whether  you  call  her ;  Pebby  —  or  Pebbly 
—  or  Mebby  —  or  Webbly.  Being  quite  unable  to  settle 
this  point  to  my  satisfaction  (though  you  write  with  such 
astonishing  plainness),  I  send  my  love  to  her  as  your 
niece  and  her  mother's  child. 

Believe  me  ever, 

Very  faithfully  yours, 
Charles  Dickens 

Compare  the  foregoing  letter  with  the  pas- 
sage in  Little  Dorrit  developed  from  this 
incident :  — 

Arrived  at  Paris,  and  resting  there  three  days,  Mr. 
Dorrit  strolled  much  about  the  streets  alone,  looking 
in  at  the  shop-windows,  and  particularly  the  jewellers' 
windows.  Ultimately,  he  went  into  the  most  famous 
jeweller's,  and  said  he  wanted  to  buy  a  little  gift  for 
a  lady. 

It  was  a  charming  little  woman  to  whom  he  said  it — 
a  sprightly  little  woman,  dressed  in  perfect  taste,  who 
came  out  of  a  green  velvet  bower  to  attend  upon  him, 
from  posting  up  some  dainty  little  books  of  account 
which  one  could  hardly  suppose  to  be  ruled  for  the  entry 

1  Mrs.  David  Lloyd's  daughter. 
[  100] 


of  any  articles  more  commercial  than  kisses,  at  a  dainty 
little  shining  desk,  which  looked  in  itself  like  a  sweetmeat. 

For  example,  then,  said  the  little  woman,  what  species 
of  gift  did  monsieur  desire  ?    A  love  gift  ? 

Mr.  Dorrit  smiled,  and  said.  Eh,  well!  Perhaps. 
What  did  he  know?  It  was  always  possible;  the  sex 
being  so  charming.     Would  she  show  him  some  ? 

Most  willingly,  said  the  little  woman.  Flattered  and 
enchanted  to  show  him  many.  But  pardon !  To  begin 
with,  he  would  have  the  great  goodness  to  observe  that 
there  were  love  gifts,  and  there  were  nuptial  gifts.  For 
example,  these  ravishing  ear-rings,  and  this  necklace  so 
superb  to  correspond,  were  what  one  called  a  love  gift. 
These  brooches  and  these  rings,  of  a  beauty  so  gracious 
and  celestial,  were  what  one  called,  with  the  permission 
of  monsieur,  nuptial  gifts. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  a  good  arrangement,  Mr.  Dorrit 
hinted,  smiling,  to  purchase  both,  and  to  present  the  love 
gift  first,  and  to  finish  with  the  nuptial  offering  ? 

Ah  Heaven !  said  the  little  woman,  laying  the  tips  of 
the  fingers  of  her  two  little  hands  against  each  other,  that 
would  be  generous  indeed,  that  would  be  a  special  gal- 
lantry! And  without  doubt  the  lady  so  crushed  with 
gifts  would  find  them  irresistible. 

Mr.  Dorrit  was  not  sure  of  that.  But,  for  example,  the 
sprightly  little  woman  was  very  sure  of  it,  she  said.  So 
Mr.  Dorrit  bought  a  gift  of  each  sort,  and  paid  hand- 
somely for  it. 

Did  Dickens  and  Mrs.  Winter  meet  as  he 
suggested,  or  did  she  see  the  wisdom  of  his 

[101  ] 


suggestion,  in  his  letter  of  February  22,  and 
wait  till  the  two  couples  dined  together  ?  In 
any  case,  there  was  keen  and  sudden  disillu- 
sionment on  his  part,  for  the  next  letter  of  the 
series,  written  about  a  fortnight  after  the  last 
one  printed,  shows  not  the  eager  affectionate- 
ness  of  the  letter  from  Paris  ;  not  even  a  man 
ready  for  an  interview  with  his  correspondent, 
but  rather  one  who  was  more  than  willing  to 
avoid  a  meeting.  Could  contrast  in  tone  be 
sharper  than  between  the  letters  of  February 
twenty-second  and  March  tenth  ?  — 

Tavistock  House, 
Saturday  Morning,  Tenth  March,  185S. 

My  dear  Maria,  —  Your  letter  was  delivered  here 
yesterday  evening  at  half  past  seven.  Being  out,  I  did 
not  receive  it  until  I  returned  home  at  midnight.  This 
answer  is  necessarily  very  short,  for  I  have  a  fear  that  it 
may  not  reach  you  otherwise. 

I  think  we  are  pretty  sure  to  be  at  home  before  three 
tomorrow.  I  cannot  positively  speak  for  myself,  as  I 
am  one  of  a  committee  on  some  public  literary  business, 
which  may  have  to  make  an  official  representation  some 
time  tomorrow.  I  have  undertaken  to  say  what  is  nec- 
essary to  be  said,  whenever  the  interview  comes  off ;  and 
it  is  not  impossible  (the  matter  pressing),  that  Sunday 
may  be  profaned  for  the  purpose.  I  do  not  think  it  is 
very  likely,  however. 

Your  cold  is  a  very  well-disposed  one,  to  improve  in 

[102] 


such  weather,  and  it  has  my  warmest  commendation  for 
being  so  good.  I  am  so  busy  that  I  have  not  had  time 
to  consider  whether  I  took  it  by  sympathy  on  Wednes- 
day evening  —  but  I  think  I  heard  somebody  sneezing 
at  my  desk  half  the  day  yesterday,  who  sounded  Uke 
the  incomparable  author. 

You  make  me  smile  when  you  picture  to  yourself  how 
weak  I  might  be,  and  what  poor  thoughts  I  might  have, 
and  in  what  unworthy  lights  it  might  be  my  spoiled  na- 
ture to  shew  myself.  With  faults  enough  to  answer  for,  I 
believe  I  have  never  been  that  kind  of  person  for  a  day. 

Little  Ella  shall  hear  from  me  on  Monday. 

In  the  ghostly  unrest  of  going  to  begin  a  new  book,^ 
my  time  is  like  one  of  the  Spirits  in  Macbeth,  and  "  will 
not  be  commanded  "  —  even  by  me. 

You  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  in  writing  to  me,  you 
write  to  no  one  else. 

Ever  affectionately  yours,  C.  D. 

The  fourth  paragraph  of  the  foregoing  letter 
probably  reveals  in  part  the  cause  of  the 
change.  The  tables  were  completely  turned. 
Twenty  years  before,  the  youth  had  been 
played  with,  heartlessly,  as  it  then  seemed  to 
him ;  for  nothing  he  could  do  or  say  made  the 
girl,  Maria  Beadnell,  less  obdurate  in  her  wilful 
unresponsiveness.  Now  Dickens,  ready  to 
found  on  the  old  relations  an  intimately  sym- 
pathetic friendship,  was  repelled  by  a  coquetry 

1  This  was  Little  Dorrit ;  the  first  number  appeared  in  December 
of  the  same  year. 

[103] 


that  tried  persistently  to  give  a  sentimental 
significance  to  the  commonplaces  of  every-day 
intercourse. 

What  a  vengeance  time  had  brought  1  Dora 
had  become  Flora  in  Little  Dorrit.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  whatever  of  that;  although  in 
the  introduction  to  the  Biographical  Edition  of 
the  latter,  Charles  Dickens  the  younger  wrote : 

"  Flora  is  supposed  to  have  been  taken  for 
the  lady  who  sat  for  Dora  in  David  Copperfield, 
as  she  appeared  after  the  lapse  of  years  and  with- 
out the  halo  of  romance ;  but  I  confess  I  have 
always  found  considerable  difficulty  in  believ- 
ing thatr  Yet  in  the  introduction  to  David 
Copperfleld  in  the  same  edition  he  remarked : 
"  There  is  some  reference  in  Mr.  Forster's 
Life  to  a  *  Dora '  who  came  across  Charles 
Dickens'  path  very  early  in  his  career  —  when 
he  was  eighteen,  in  fact  —  but  as  she  married 
somebody  else,  and  developed  into  the  *  Flora ' 
of  Little  Dorrit,  she  could  have  had  in  reality 
very  little  to  do  with  Dora  Spenlow."  There 
seems  to  be  some  contradiction  here.  There 
can,  however,  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  relations 
of  Flora  and  Clennam  Dickens  drew  on  his 
later  knowledge  of  Mrs.  Winter,  just  as  his 
association  with  Maria  Beadnell  had   given 

[  104] 


him  much  material  for  David  Copper/1  eld.  In 
the  first  place,  as  the  succeeding  letters  will 
show,  Mrs.  Winter  followed  him  up  much  as 
Flora  follows  Clennam.  In  the  second  place, 
he  said  to  both  Forster  and  the  Duke  of  Dev- 
onshire that  Flora  was  a  fact,  not  merely  an 
imagination.  To  the  first  he  wrote  on  April 
seventh,  18^6:  "There  are  some  things  in 
Flora  in  number  seven  that  seem  to  me  to  be 
extraordinarily  droll,  with  something  serious  at 
the  bottom  of  them  after  all.  Ah,  well !  was 
there  not  something  very  serious  in  it  once?" 

To  the  second  he  said  in  a  letter  dated  July 
fifth  of  the  same  year :  "  I  am  so  glad  you  like 
Flora.  It  came  into  my  head  one  day  that  we 
have  all  had  our  Floras,  and  that  it  was  a  half- 
serious,  half-ridiculous  truth  which  had  never 
been  told.  It  is  a  wonderful  gratification  to 
me  to  find  that  everybody  knows  her.  In- 
deed, some  people  seem  to  think  I  have  done 
them  a  personal  injury  and  that  their  indi- 
vidual Floras  (God  knows  where  they  are,  or 
who !)  are  each  and  all  Little  Dorrits." 

In  the  light  of  this  last  letter  and  those  to 
follow,  the  following  from  Little  Dorrit  reads 
as  merely  a  humorously  intensified  account 
of  the  first  meeting  of  Dickens  and  Mrs.  Win- 

[105] 


ten  It  will  be  seen  that  Dickens  assigned 
himself  a  dual  part ;  for  in  the  Paris  jewellery 
store  we  found  him  playing  Mr.  Dorrit,  and 
here  he  assumes  the  role  of  Clennam.  About 
the  only  attempt  he  has  made  to  disguise  the 
identity  of  Mrs.  Winter  and  himself  in  this 
remarkable  narrative  is  that  he  gives  her  the 
character  of  Flora  Pinching,  a  tall  widow,  and 
he,  as  Arthur  Clennam,  pretends  to  be  an 
unmarried  man :  — 

"  My  daughter  Flora,"  said  Mr.  Casby,  "  as  you  may 
have  heard  probably,  Mr.  Clennam,  was  married  and 
established  in  life,  several  years  ago.  She  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  lose  her  husband  when  she  had  been  married 
a  few  months.  She  resides  with  me  again.  She  will 
be  glad  to  see  you,  if  you  will  permit  me  to  let  her  know 
that  you  are  here." 

"  By  all  means,"  returned  Clennam.  "  I  should  have 
preferred  the  request,  if  your  kindness  had  not  anticipated 
me." 

Upon  this,  Mr.  Casby  rose  up  in  his  list  shoes,  and 
with  a  slow,  heavy  step  (he  was  of  an  elephantine  build), 
made  for  the  door.  He  had  a  long  wide-skirted  bottle- 
green  coat  on,  and  a  bottle-green  pair  of  trowsers,  and  a 
bottle-green  waistcoat.  The  Patriarchs  were  not  dressed 
in  bottle-green  broadcloth,  and  yet  his  clothes  looked 
patriarchal.  .  .  . 

Clennam's  eyes  no  sooner  fell  upon  the  object  of  his 
old  passion,  than  it  shivered  and  broke  to  pieces. 

[  106] 


Most  men  will  be  found  sufficiently  true  to  themselves 
to  be  true  to  an  old  idea.  It  is  no  proof  of  an  inconstant 
mind,  but  exactly  the  opposite,  when  the  idea  will  not 
bear  close  comparison  with  the  reality,  and  the  contrast 
is  a  fatal  shock  to  it.  Such  was  Clennam's  case.  In  his 
youth  he  had  ardently  loved  this  woman,  and  had  heaped 
upon  her  all  the  locked-up  wealth  of  his  affection  and 
imagination.  That  wealth  had  been,  in  his  desert  home, 
like  Robinson  Crusoe's  money ;  exchangeable  with  no 
one,  lying  idle  in  the  dark  to  rust,  until  he  poured  it  out 
for  her.  Ever  since  that  memorable  time,  though  he 
had,  until  the  night  of  his  arrival,  as  completely  dis- 
missed her  from  any  association  with  his  Present  or 
Future  as  if  she  had  been  dead  (which  she  might 
easily  have  been  for  anything  he  knew),  he  had  kept 
the  old  fancy  of  the  Past  unchanged,  in  its  old  sacred 
place.  .  .  . 

Flora,  always  tall,  had  grown  to  be  very  broad  too, 
and  short  of  breath;  but  that  was  not  much.  Flora, 
whom  he  had  left  a  lily,  had  become  a  peony ;  but  that 
was  not  much.  Flora,  who  had  seemed  enchanting  in 
all  she  said  and  thought,  was  diffuse  and  silly.  That 
was  much.  Flora,  who  had  been  spoiled  and  artless 
long  ago,  was  determined  to  be  spoiled  and  artless  now. 
That  was  a  fatal  blow. 

This  is  Flora ! 

"  I  am  sure,"  giggled  Flora,  tossing  her  head  with  a 
caricature  of  her  girlish  manner,  such  as  a  mummer 
might  have  presented  at  her  own  funeral,  if  she  had 
lived  and  died  in  classical  antiquity,  "  I  am  ashamed  to 
see  Mr.  Clennam,  I  am  a  mere  fright,  I  know  he'll  find 

[107] 


me  fearfully  changed,  I  am  actually  an  old  woman,  it 's 
shocking  to  be  so  found  out,  it 's  really  shocking  !  " 

He  assured  her  that  she  was  just  what  he  had  expected, 
and  that  time  had  not  stood  still  with  himself. 

"  Oh !  But  with  a  gentleman  it 's  so  different  and 
really  you  look  so  amazingly  well  that  you  have  no 
right  to  say  anything  of  the  kind,  while,  as  to  me  you 
know  —  oh  !  "  cried  Flora  with  a  little  scream,  "  I  am 
dreadful !  .  .  . 

"  But  if  we  talk  of  not  having  changed,"  said  Flora, 
who,  whatever  she  said,  never  once  came  to  a  full  stop, 
"  look  at  Papa,  is  not  Papa  precisely  what  he  was  when 
you  went  away,  is  n't  it  cruel  and  unnatural  of  Papa  to 
be  such  a  reproach  to  his  own  child,  if  we  go  on  in  this 
way  much  longer  people  who  don't  know  us  will  begin 
to  suppose  that  I  am  Papa's  Mama ! " 

That  must  be  a  long  time  hence,  Arthur  considered. 

"  Oh  Mr.  Clennam  you  insincerest  of  creatures,"  said 
Flora,  "  I  perceive  already  you  have  not  lost  your  old 
way  of  paying  compliments,  your  old  way  when  you 
used  to  pretend  to  be  so  sentimentally  struck  you  know 
—  at  least  I  don't  mean  that,  1  —  oh  I  don't  know  what 
I  mean !  "  Here  Flora  tittered  confusedly,  and  gave  him 
one  of  her  old  glances.  .  .  . 

"  You  must  n't  think  of  going  yet,"  said  Flora  — 
Arthur  had  looked  at  his  hat,  being  in  a  ludicrous  dis- 
may, and  not  knowing  what  to  do ;  "  you  could  never 
be  so  unkind  as  to  think  of  going,  Arthur  —  I  mean  Mr. 
Arthur  —  or  I  suppose  Mr.  Clennam  would  be  far  more 
proper  —  but  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  1  'm  saying  — 
without  a  word  about  the  dear  old  days  gone  forever, 

[108] 


however  when  I  come  to  think  of  it  I  dare  say  it  would 
be  much  better  not  to  speak  of  them  and  it 's  highly 
probable  that  you  have  some  much  more  agreeable  en- 
gagement and  pray  let  Me  be  the  last  person  in  the  world 
to  interfere  with  it  though  there  was  a  time,  but  I  am 
running  into  nonsense  again." 

Was  it  possible,  that  Flora  could  have  been  such  a 
chatterer,  in  the  days  she  referred  to  ?  Could  there  have 
been  anything  like  her  present  disjointed  volubility,  in 
the  fascinations  that  had  captivated  him  ? 

"  Indeed  I  have  little  doubt,"  said  Flora,  running  on 
with  astonishing  speed,  and  pointing  her  conversation 
with  nothing  but  commas,  and  very  few  of  them,  "  that 
you  are  married  to  some  Chinese  lady,  being  in  China  so 
long  and  being  in  business  and  naturally  desirous  to  settle 
and  extend  your  connection  nothing  was  more  likely  than 
that  you  should  propose  to  a  Chinese  lady  and  nothing 
was  more  natural  I  am  sure  than  that  the  Chinese  lady 
should  accept  you  and  think  herself  very  well  oflf  too.  1 
only  hope  she 's  not  a  Pagodian  dissenter." 

"  I  am  not,"  returned  Arthur,  smiling  in  spite  of  him- 
self, *'  married  to  any  lady.  Flora." 

"  Oh  good  gracious  me  1  hope  you  never  kept  your- 
self a  bachelor  so  long  on  my  account !  "  tittered  Flora ; 
"  but  of  course  you  never  did  why  should  you,  pray 
don't  answer,  I  don't  know  where  1  'm  running  to,  oh  do 
tell  me  something  about  the  Chinese  ladies  whether  their 
eyes  are  really  so  long  and  narrow  always  putting  me  in 
mind  of  mother-of-pearl  fish  at  cards  and  do  they  really 
wear  tails  down  their  back  and  plaited  too  or  is  it  only 
the  men,  and  when  they  pull  their  hair  so  very  tight  off 

[  109] 


their  foreheads  don't  they  hurt  themselves,  and  why  do 
they  stick  little  bells  all  over  their  bridges  and  temples 
and  hats  and  things  or  don't  they  really  do  it !  "  Flora 
gave  him  another  of  her  old  glances.  Instantly  she  went 
on  again,  as  if  he  had  spoken  in  reply  for  some  time. 

*'  Then  it 's  all  true  and  they  really  do  !  good  gracious 
Arthur !  —  pray  excuse  me  —  old  habit  —  Mr.  Clennam 
far  more  proper  —  what  a  country  to  live  in  for  so  long 
a  time,  and  with  so  many  lanterns  and  umbrellas  too 
how  very  dark  and  wet  the  climate  ought  to  be  and  no 
doubt  actually  is,  and  the  sums  of  money  that  must  be 
made  by  those  two  trades  where  everybody  carries  them 
and  hangs  them  everywhere,  the  little  shoes  too  and  the 
feet  screwed  back  in  infancy  is  quite  surprising,  what  a 
traveller  you  are !  "  .  .  . 

Flora  had  at  last  talked  herself  out  of  breath  for  one 
moment.  One  moment ;  for  she  recovered  breath  in  the 
act  of  raising  a  minute  comer  of  her  pocket-handkerchief 
to  her  eye,  as  a  tribute  to  the  ghost  of  the  departed  Mr. 
F.,  and  began  again. 

"  No  one  could  dispute,  Arthur  —  Mr.  Clennam  —  that 
it's  quite  right  you  should  be  formally  friendly  to  me 
under  the  altered  circumstances  and  indeed  you  could  n't 
be  anything  else,  at  least  I  suppose  not  you  ought  to 
know,  but  I  can't  help  recalling  that  there  was  a  time 
when  things  were  very  different." 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Finching,"  Arthur  began,  struck  by 
the  good  tone  again. 

"  Oh  not  that  nasty  ugly  name,  say  Flora ! " 

"Flora.  I  assure  you,  Flora,  I  am  happy  in  seeing 
you  once  more,  and  in  finding  that,  like  me,  you  have 

[  110] 


not  forgotten  the  old  foolish  dreams,  when  we  saw  all 
before  us  in  the  light  of  our  youth  and  hope." 

"  You  don't  seem  so,"  pouted  Flora,  "you  take  it  very 
coolly,  but  however  I  know  you  are  disappointed  in  me, 
I  suppose  the  Chinese  ladies — Mandarinesses  if  you  call 
them  so  —  are  the  cause  or  perhaps  I  am  the  cause  my- 
self,  it 's  just  as  likely." 

"  No,  no,"  Clennam  entreated,  "  don't  say  that." 

"  Oh  I  must  you  know,"  said  Flora,  in  a  positive  tone, 
"  what  nonsense  not  to,  I  know  1  am  not  what  you  ex- 
pected, I  know  that  very  well." 

In  the  midst  of  her  rapidity,  she  had  found  that  out 
with  the  quick  perception  of  a  cleverer  woman.  The  in- 
consistent and  profoundly  unreasonable  way  in  which  she 
instantly  went  on,  nevertheless,  to  interweave  their  long- 
abandoned  boy  and  girl  relations  with  their  present  inter- 
view, made  Clennam  feel  as  if  he  were  lightheaded. 

The  following  letter  in  the  series  phrases 
better  than  anything  else  by  Dickens  the  great 
restlessness  that  always  came  upon  him  when 
a  new  book  was  forming  in  his  mind,  and  that 
was  intensified  between  18^4  and  18^8  by  the 
increasing  harassment  he  felt  in  his  relations 
with  Mrs.  Dickens.  — 

Tuesday,  third  April,  1855. 

My  dear  Maria, —  Going  down  to  Ashford  this  day 

week,  already  with  a  bad  cold,  1  increased  it  so  much  by 

getting  into  the  intense  heat  consequent  upon  a  reading 

of  three  hours  and  then  coming  up  in  the  night  (which  I 

[111] 


was  obliged  to  do,  having  business  in  town  next  morn- 
ing) ,  that  I  was  very  unwell  all  the  week,  and  on  Friday 
night  was  so  completely  knocked  up  that  I  came  home  at 
9  o'clock  to  bed.  A  necessity  is  upon  me  now  —  as  at 
most  times  —  of  wandering  about  in  my  own  wild  way, 
to  think.  I  could  no  more  resist  this  on  Sunday  or  yes- 
terday, than  a  man  can  dispense  with  food,  or  a  horse 
can  help  himself  from  being  driven.  I  hold  my  inventive 
capacity  on  the  stern  condition  that  it  must  master  my 
whole  life,  often  have  complete  possession  of  me,  make 
its  own  demands  upon  me,  and  sometimes  for  months 
together  put  everything  else  away  from  me.  If  I  had  not 
known  long  ago  that  my  place  could  never  be  held,  unless 
I  were  at  any  moment  ready  to  devote  myself  to  it  en- 
tirely, I  should  have  dropped  out  of  it  very  soon.  All 
this  I  can  hardly  expect  you  to  understand  —  or  the  rest- 
lessness and  waywardness  of  an  author's  mind.  You 
have  never  seen  it  before  you,  or  lived  with  it,  or  had 
occasion  to  think  or  care  about  it,  and  you  cannot  have 
the  necessary  consideration  for  it.  "It  is  only  half  an 
hour"  —  "it  is  only  an  afternoon"  —  "it  is  only  an 
evening  "  —  people  say  to  me  over  and  over  again  —  but 
they  don't  know  that  it  is  impossible  to  command  one's 
self  sometimes  to  any  stipulated  and  set  disposal  of  five 
minutes  —  or  that  the  mere  consciousness  of  an  engage- 
ment will  sometimes  worry  a  whole  day.  These  are  the 
penalties  paid  for  writing  books.  Whoever  is  devoted  to 
an  Art  must  be  content  to  deliver  himself  wholly  up  to 
it,  and  to  find  his  recompense  in  it.  I  am  grieved  if  you 
suspect  me  of  not  wanting  to  see  you,  but  I  can't  help  it ; 
I  must  go  my  way,  whether  or  no. 

[112] 


I  thought  you  would  understand  that,  in  sending  the 
card  for  the  box,  I  sent  an  assurance  that  there  was  noth- 
ing amiss.  I  am  pleased  to  find  that  you  were  all  so 
much  interested  with  the  play.  My  ladies  say  that  the 
first  part  is  too  painful  and  wants  relief.  I  have  been 
going  to  see  it  a  dozen  times,  but  have  never  seen  it  yet, 
and  never  may.  Madame  Ce'leste  is  injured  thereby 
(you  see  how  unreasonable  people  are!)  and  says  in  the 
Green  Room,  with  a  very  tight  cheek,  *'  M.  Dickens  est 
artiste !  Mais  il  n'a  jamais  vu  Janet  Pride ! " 

It  is  like  a  breath  of  fresh  spring  air  to  know  that  that 
unfortunate  baby  of  yours  is  out  of  her  one  close  room 
and  has  about  half  a  pint  of  very  doubtful  air  per  day.  1 
could  only  have  become  her  godfather  on  the  condition 
that  she  had  500  gallons  of  open  air  at  any  rate,  every 
day  of  her  life.  And  you  would  soon  see  a  rose  or  two 
in  the  face  of  my  other  little  friend,  Ella,  if  you  opened 
all  your  doors  and  windows  throughout  the  whole  of 
all  fine  weather,  from  morning  to  night. 

I  am  going  off,  I  don't  know  where  or  how  far,  to  pon- 
der about  I  don't  know  what.    Sometimes  I  am  half  in 

1  Reading  these  words  of  kindly  interest  in  the  child  of  Maria 
Beadnell,  one  sees  from  what  experience  grew  such  a  passage  as  the 
following :  — 

"  No  man  ever  really  loved  a  woman,  lost  her,  and  knew  her  with 
a  blameless  though  an  unchanged  mind  when  she  was  a  wife  and  a 
mother,  but  her  children  had  a  strange  sympathy  with  him  —  an 
instinctive  delicacy  of  pity  for  him.  What  fine  hidden  sensibilities 
are  touched  in  such  a  case,  no  echoes  tell ;  but  it  is  so,  and  it  was 
so  here.  Carton  was  the  first  stranger  to  whom  little  Lucy  held  out 
her  chubby  arms,  and  he  kept  his  place  with  her  as  she  grew."  Tale 
of  Two  Cities. 

[113  1 


the  mood  to  set  oflF  for  France,  sometimes  I  think  1  will 
go  and  walk  about  on  the  sea  shore  for  three  of  four 
months,  sometimes  I  look  towards  the  Pyrenees,  some- 
times Switzerland.  I  made  a  compact  with  a  great  Span- 
ish authority  last  week,  and  vowed  I  would  go  to  Spain. 
Two  days  afterwards  Layard  and  1  agreed  to  go  to  Con- 
stantinople when  Parliament  rises.  To-morrow  I  shall 
probably  discuss  with  somebody  else,  the  idea  of  going 
to  Greenland  or  the  North  Pole.  The  end  of  all  this, 
most  likely,  will  be  that  I  shall  shut  myself  up  in  some 
out  of  the  way  place  I  have  never  yet  thought  of,  and 
go  desperately  to  work  there. 

Once  upon  a  time  I  didn't  do  such  things,  you 
say.  No,  but  I  have  done  them  through  a  good  many 
years  now,  and  they  have  become  myself  and  my 
life. 

Ever  affectionately,        C  D. 

This  letter  shows  even  more  clearly  than  its 
predecessor  the  completely  changed  attitude 
of  Dickens  toward  Mrs.  Winter.  This  is  the 
writing  of  a  man  in  whom  all  ardency  of  feel- 
ing for  the  person  addressed  is  forever  dead, 
but  who  yet  wishes  to  remain  on  terms  of 
pleasant  and  even  of  intimate  acquaintance- 
ship, provided  the  intimacy  is  not  exacting. 
After  the  letter  of  March  tenth  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Mrs.  Winter  evidently  said  she 
feared  Dickens  did  not  really  care  to  see  her. 
Maria  Beadnell  must  have  changed  greatly  in 

[114] 


the  years  since  1830,  —  that,  as  Mrs.  Winter, 
she  was  not  chilled  into  indifference  and  silence 
by  such  sentences  as  these  of  the  letter:  "I  am 
grieved  if  you  suspect  me  of  not  wanting  to 
see  you,  but  I  can't  help  it ;  I  must  go  my  way, 
whether  or  no.  .  .  .  Once  upon  a  time  I  didn't 
do  such  things,  you  say.  No,  but  I  have 
done  them  through  a  good  many  years  now, 
and  they  have  become  myself  and  my  life." 
From  '*  Remember,  1  accept  all  with  my  whole 
soul,  and  reciprocate  all,"  to  something  not  far 
from  rudeness  must  signify  great  disillusion- 
ment, dramatic  in  its  suddenness  and  com- 
pleteness. Could  time  have  brought  a  more 
complete,  and  a  more  theatrical,  turning  of  the 
tables  ? 

The  next  letter  further  strengthens  the  evi- 
dence as  to  the  great  change  in  Dickens  toward 
his  old  love.  Is  there  a  touch  of  ironic  humor 
in  that  "but  one,"  —  inserted  as  an  after- 
thought in  the  first  line?  Certainly  there 
would  seem  to  be  a  hint  in  the  last  lines  that 
other  thoughts  than  of  him  should  be  absorb- 
ing the  mother's  mind.  —  "I  shall  be  very 
happy  to  receive  your  little  token  of  remem- 
brance, when  you  have  less  care  on  your  mind, 
and  have  set  your  baby  up  —  as  I  hope  and 

[115] 


trust  you  soon  will  —  twenty  times  stronger 
than  before." 

Kindly  tolerance  of  an  exacting  friend  who 
has  been  given  some  ground  for  her  assiduities 
by  an  unwise  impetuosity  on  his  part  very 
early  in  their  renewal  of  their  friendship  has 
replaced  all  the  stronger  feeling.  Clearly 
enough,  Dickens  had  no  longer  any  hearty 
interest  in  the  correspondence,  but  was  un- 
willing to  break  it  off  lest  he  should  sorely 
wound  the  woman  he  had  once  deeply  loved 
and  whom  he  had  welcomed  to  his  friendship 
again  with  unwise  enthusiasm.  — 

Tavistock  House, 

Eleventh  June,  I855. 

My  dear  Maria,  —  I  answered  your  last  letter,  but 
one,^  almost  as  soon  as  I  received  it,  to  let  you  know  that 
I  should  be  out  of  town  that  Sunday,  and  for  several 
Sundays  in  succession.  This  note  of  mine  must  have 
gone  astray  somehow  or  somewhere,  for  I  posted  it  my- 
self. It  has  happened  on  a  former  occasion  —  but  only 
on  one  —  that  a  letter  of  mine  failed  to  reach  its  destina- 
tion. How  this  comes  to  be  missing,  I  cannot  compre- 
hend. 

Your  account  of  your  poor  little  child  is  distressing 
indeed,  and  makes  me  heartily  sorry  for  your  fatigues 
and  anxieties.    1  have  never  had  any  faith  in  the  homoeo- 
pathic system  and  therefore  have  never  tried  it.    1  am 
1  In  MS.,  the  words  "  but  one  "  are  added  above  the  line. 

[  116] 


inclined  to  think  that  it  is  principally  successful  with 
people  who  have  nothing  the  matter  with  them,  and  that 
active  diseases  where  there  is  a  vigorous  action  for  evil 
going  on,  require  more  decided  remedies.  Still,  it  is  in- 
dubitably successful  m  some  violent  cases  even. 

I  shall  be  very  happy  to  receive  your  little  token  of 
remembrance,  when  you  have  less  care  on  your  mind, 
and  have  set  your  baby  up  —  as  1  hope  and  trust  you  soon 
will  —  twenty  times  stronger  than  before.  Take  care  of 
your  baby's  mother,  and  God  bless  her. 

Ever  faithfully  yours,  C.  D. 

The  next  letter  of  the  set  is  conspicuous  for 
its  beauty  of  feeling  and  of  phrase.  It  is  per- 
haps noteworthy  that  even  this  very  sym- 
pathetic letter  opens  with  "My  dear  Mrs. 
Winter,"  the  form  Dickens  henceforth  used 
always  in  the  correspondence,  except  in  the 
last  letter  of  all.  It  is  but  another  evidence  of 
the  steady  if  kindly  diminishing  by  Dickens 
of  the  intimacy  cordially  sought  by  both  at 
first.  — 

Tavistock  House, 
Wednesday,  thirteenth  June,  t85S. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,  —  I  am  truly  grieved  to  hear 
of  your  affliction  in  the  loss  of  your  darling  baby.  But 
if  you  be  not,  even  already,  so  reconciled  to  the  parting 
from  that  innocent  child  for  a  little  while,  as  to  bear  it 
gently  and  with  a  softened  sorrow,  1  know  that  that  not 
unhappy  state  of  mind  must  soon  arise.    The  death  of 

[117] 


infants  is  a  release  from  so  much  chance  and  change  — 
from  so  many  casualties  and  distresses  —  and  is  a  thing 
so  beautiful  in  its  serenity  and  peace  —  that  it  should  not 
be  a  bitterness,  even  in  a  mother's  heart.  The  simplest 
and  most  affecting  passage  in  all  the  noble  history  of 
our  Great  Master,  is  his  consideration  for  little  children. 
And  in  reference  to  yours,  as  many  millions  of  bereaved 
mothers  poor  and  rich  will  do  in  reference  to  theirs  until 
the  end  of  time,  you  may  take  the  comfort  of  the  gra- 
cious words  "And  he  took  a  child,  and  set  it  in  the 
midst  of  them." 

In  a  book  by  one  of  the  greatest  English  writers,^ 
called  A  Journey  from  this  World  to  the  Next,  a  parent 
comes  to  the  distant  country  beyond  the  grave,  and  finds 
the  little  girl  he  had  lost  so  long  ago,  engaged  in  building 
a  bower  to  receive  him  in,  when  his  aged  steps  should 
bring  him  there  at  last.    He  is  filled  with  joy  to  see  her 

—  so  young  —  so  bright — so  full  of  promise  —  and  is 
enraptured  to  think  that  she  never  was  old,  wan,  tearful, 
withered.  This  is  always  one  of  the  sources  of  conso- 
lation in  the  deaths  of  children.  With  no  effort  of  the 
fancy,  with  nothing  to  undo,  you  will  always  be  able  to 
think  of  the  pretty  creature  you  have  lost,  as  a  child  in 
Heaven. 

A  poor  little  baby  of  mine  lies  in  Highgate  Cemetery 

—  and  I  laid  her,  just  as  you  think  of  laying  yours,  in 
the  catacombs  there,  until  I  made  a  resting-place  for  all 
of  us  in  the  free  air. 

It  is  better  that  I  should  not  come  to  see  you.  I  feel 
quite  sure  of  that,  and  will  think  of  you  instead. 

1  Defoe. 
[118] 


God  bless  and  comfort  you!  Mrs  Dickens  and  her 
sister  send  their  kindest  condolences  to  yourself  and  Mr 
Winter.     I  add  mine  with  all  my  heart. 

Affectionately  your  friend 

Charles  Dickens 

Here  there  is  a  break  of  three  years  in  the 
correspondence.  Meantime  Little  Dorrit  had 
been  written  (185^-^7),  and  in  Flora  Pinching 
Dickens  had  half  sadly  mocked  at  his  own 
sentimentality  in  thinking  for  a  moment  that 
the  charmer  of  his  youth  must  inevitably  be  as 
charming  for  him  at  middle  age.  The  original 
of  Dora  and  Flora  must  have  read  her  second 
presentation  with  very  different  feelings.  It  is 
most  likely,  however,  that  with  the  blessed 
power  we  have  not  to  see  ourselves  as  others 
see  us  and  to  be  able  to  explain  our  worst  va- 
garies to  ourselves  with  entire  satisfactoriness, 
Mrs.  Winter  never  dreamed  that  Flora  owed 
anything  to  her.  Certainly,  during  all  this 
period  she  was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the 
Dickens  family,  for  in  July,  18^7,  the  faithful 
sister-in-law  of  Dickens,  Georgina  Hogarth, 
wrote  to  her  freely  of  intimate  family  matters. 
Walter  Dickens,  the  fourth  child,  whom  his 
father  had  called  "Young  Skull"  because  of 
his  high  cheek-bones,  went  out  to  India  in 

[119] 


July,  18^7,  as  a  cadet  in  the  "Company's  ser- 
vice." He  died  in  the  hospital  at  Calcutta  in 
1863.— 

Gad's  Hill,  July  21  st,  1857. 
My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,  —  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much 
we  all  feel  your  kind  recollection  of  and  sympathy  with 
us  in  our  parting  with  dear  Walter.  It  has  been  a  sad 
trial,  but  thank  God !  it  is  over,  and  you  will  be  glad  to 
hear  that  the  dear  boy  bore  it  a  very  great  deal  better 
than  we  could  have  hoped.  We,  that  is  to  say,  his 
mother  and  sisters  and  1  parted  with  him  at  Tavistock 
House  on  Sunday  morning.  Charles  and  Charley  went 
with  him  to  Southampton.  He  broke  down  very  near  at 
the  moment  of  bidding  us  goodbye,  but  his  father  (who 
with  Charley  returned  here  last  night,  after  seeing  him 
off)  says  he  soon  recovered,  and  was  never  so  much  cut 
up  again.  He  was  immensely  delighted  and  astonished 
with  the  magnificence  and  comfort  of  the  fitting  up  of 
the  vessel  —  all  his  previous  experience  of  steam  boats 
having  been  the  very  uncomfortable  Boulogne  packets. 
They  made  acquaintance  with  the  Captain  whom  they 
liked  extremely,  and  most  lucky  of  all,  he  found  an  old 
school-fellow  on  board,  who  is  going  the  whole  journey 
to  Calcutta.  This,  Charles  said,  seemed  to  set  him  up 
entirely,  and  when  they  left  him  finally,  he  looked  a  great 
deal  less  sad  than  they  did.  This  is  all  very  cheering,  is 
it  not  ?  and  reconciles  us  very  much  to  the  separation. 
Please  God  that  he  may  keep  his  health  and  do  well !  I 
assure  you  your  suggestions  were  most  valuable.  Charles 
desires  me,  with  his  love  to  you,  to  say  how  much  he  was 
obliged  to  you  for  them.    Flannel  he  was  well  provided 

[120  1 


with,  and  his  father  spoke  to  him  strongly  over  the  im- 
perative  necessity  of  his  wearing  it  —  but  the  medicines 
he  had  not  got,  and  we  lost  no  time  on  Saturday  in  going 
to  Savory  &  Moore's  and  providing  him  with  a  little  case 
containing  plenty  of  quinine,  Jeremy's  opium  and  essence 
of  ginger  which  the  man  recommended  to  be  added.  So 
you  see  your  letter  was  of  essential  service  to  our  young 
traveller,  as,  strange  to  say,  the  necessity  of  giving  him 
these  things  had  not  occurred  to  his  father  who  generally 
thinks  of  everything. 

I  am  very  sorry  you  have  hurt  your  hand.  It  is  such 
a  miserable  thing  to  be  disabled  in  that  way,  especially 
with  the  right  hand. 

Our  plays  ^  have  been  a  tremendous  success,  and  I  am 
happy  to  say  the  Fund  is  going  on  increasing  in  a  most 
satisfactory  manner.  We  have  one  more  performance  of 
"  The  Frozen  Deep  "  Saturday.  I  am  very  glad  you 
were  pleased  the  night  you  were  there.  It  was  all  per- 
fectly right  about  the  money. 

The  Queen  and  her  party  *  made  a  most  excellent  audi- 
ence—  so  far  from  being  cold,  as  we  expected,  they  cried 
and  laughed  and  applauded  and  made  as  much  demon- 
stration as  so  small  a  party  (they  were  not  more  than 
fifty)  could  do.  She  sent,  through  Colonel  Phipps,  an 
expression  of  her  immense  delight  at  the  whole  affair. 
But  she  did  not  come  for  the  Jerrold  Fund.     That  was 

1  For  the  Douglas  Jerrold  Fund.  "  An  amateur  company,  in- 
cluding many  of  Mr.  Jerrold' s  colleagues  on  '  Punch '  gave  subscrip- 
tion performances  of  '  The  Frozen  Deep '  [Jerrold's  play]  at  the  Gal- 
lery of  Illustration,  Regent  St,"    ''Letters''  p.  4l6. 

"  In  July  a  performance  of  "  The  Frozen  Deep  "  was  given  at  her 
request  before  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  Consort. 

[121] 


distinctly  understood  beforehand.  Wlien  the  application 
was  made  to  her  to  attend  the  performance  for  the  Fund 
on  the  nth  July,  she  sent  Col.  Phipps  to  Charles  to  ex- 
plain how  sorry  she  was  that  she  could  not  break  through 
an  unwritten  rule  not  to  patronize  anything  of  the  kind 
for  the  benefit  of  Individuals,  as  she  might  be  called 
upon  to  do  so  every  day,  which  one  can  easily  understand. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  she  begged  Col.  Phipps  to  say 
how  much  she  had  always  wished  to  see  the  play  of 
which  she  had  heard  a  great  deal,  and  to  ask  Charles  if 
be  would  bring  it  to  Buckingham  Palace,  choose  what 
room  he  liked  there,  and  do  it  as  he  pleased.  To  which 
Charles  replied  that  he  was  very  anxious  to  oblige  the 
Queen,  but  as  neither  he  nor  any  of  his  fellow  actors  nor 
his  family  went  to  Court  he  would  rather  not  go  there, 
and  especially  would  rather  not  take  his  ladies  there,  in 
the  quality  of  actors  and  actresses,  but  that,  if  the  Queen 
would  come  to  a  private  representation  at  the  Gallery,  to 
which  she  should  invite  her  own  party,  he  would  be  very 
happy  to  get  it  up  for  her  alone.  The  Queen  sent  back 
a  most  amiable  message,  to  say  that  she  quite  felt  the 
propriety  of  Charles'  objection  to  go  to  the  Palace,  accept- 
ing his  proposal  and  fixing  the  evening  for  coming  to  the 
Gallery.  This  is  the  exact  real  story  which  has  given 
rise  to  the  absurd  paragraph  in  the  newspapers. 

I  am  so  very  sorry  to  hear  your  dear  little  girl  missed 
her  prize.  It  must  have  been  a  great  disappointment  to 
her.  It  is  a  great  disadvantage  to  a  clever  little  girl  to 
be  put  into  a  class  with  much  older  ones  —  and  it  often 
happens. 

We  have  all  our  school  boys  at  home  now,  enjoying 

[122] 


their  holidays  immensely.  Dear  Walter's  last  week  was 
very  happy,  for  they  were  all  together,  and  they  had 
young  friends  down,  and  had  cricket  matches  in  the  field, 
and  of  course  everybody  did  their  utmost  to  make  much 
of  him  and  keep  up  his  spirits  and  he  enjoyed  himself 
extremely.  The  play,  too,  at  the  last,  was  a  good  thing 
for  us  all,  for  it  was  an  excitement  and  distraction  and 
kept  us  from  dwelling  on  the  one  subject. 

I  hope  your  sister's  invalids  are  all  better. 

Goodbye,  dearest  Mrs.  Winter,  with  love  from  all, 

believe  me 

Affectionately  yours, 

Georgina  Hogarth 

Apparently  Mrs.  Winter,  just  like  Flora, 
clung  to  the  idea  of  an  intimate  friendship 
even  when,  as  we  have  seen,  she  was  repeatedly 
checked  by  courteous  but  somewhat  formal 
letters.  At  any  rate,  some  communication  of 
hers  brought  forth  the  following  kindly  but 
brief  and  firm  refusal  to  have  busy  time  cut  into 
by  a  useless  interview.  The  Anne  referred  to, 
the  author  of  the  verses  printed  at  the  end  of 
this  volume,  was  probably  Anne  Beadnell  Kolle, 
who  had  died  in  May,  183  6. — 

Gad's  Hill  Place, 

HiGHAM  BY  Rochester,  Kent, 

Monday,  Sixteenth  August,  1858. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,  — I  have  read  poor  dear 

Anne's  prayer   with    great   sorrow,    and   with    many 

[123  1 


emotions  of  sadly  affectionate  remembrance.  It  was 
written,  no  doubt,  under  a  presentiment  of  Death ;  but 
it  must  always  be  remembered  that  such  a  presentiment 
often  exists  when  it  fails  to  be  fulfilled ;  and  it  is  very 
commonly  engendered  in  the  state  of  mind  belonging 
to  the  condition  in  which  she  composed  the  prayer. 

It  would  give  me  great  pleasure  to  see  you  at  Liver- 
pool, if  1  had  the  least  confidence  in  my  own  freedom 
for  a  moment  under  the  circumstances  which  will  take 
me  there.  But  I  have  so  much  business  to  transact  at 
times,  and  have  to  keep  myself  so  quiet  at  other  times, 
and  have  so  many  people  to  give  directions  to,  and  make 
arrangements  with  (four  travel  with  me) ,  that  1  see  no 
one  while  I  am  on  this  Tour,  and  have  to  be  always 
grimly  self-denying  and  heroic.  So  I  shall  hope  to  see 
you  in  London,  at  some  time  when  I  am  in  a  less  vir- 
tuous, and  less  hurried  and  worried  condition. 

With  my  love  to  Ella,  and  kindest  regard  to  W  Winter, 
Ever  affectionately  yours, 

Charles  Dickens 

About  three  months  later  a  great  blow  came 
to  Mrs.  Winter  in  the  financial  failure  of  her 
husband.  She  apparently  asked  Dickens  to 
aid  him  to  a  fresh  start  in  life.  Like  all  the 
later  letters  of  the  series,  however,  this,  though 
kind  in  tone,  is  firm  in  its  refusal  to  be  drawn 
into  any  entangling  alliances  or  responsibilities. 
A  few  years  later  Mr.  Winter  entered  the  min- 
istry, becoming  a  curate  at  Little  Eversham, 

1 124  ] 


Cambridge,  in  1866.  He  was  afterwards 
Vicar  of  Alnmouth,  Northumberland,  where 
he  died,  March  22,  1871.— 

Brighton, 
Saturday,  Thirteenth  November,  I858. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Winter,  —  I  have  been  so  constantly 
and  rapidly  changing  from  place  to  place  during  the  past 
week,  that  I  am  only  just  now  in  receipt  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  your  misfortune.  With  the  utmost  sincerity 
and  earnestness  of  which  my  heart  is  capable,  I  condole 
with  you  upon  it,  and  assure  you  of  my  true  sympathy 
and  friendship.  It  has  distressed  me  greatly.  Not  be- 
cause I  am  so  worldly  or  so  unjust  as  to  couple  the  least 
reproach  or  blame  with  a  reverse  that  I  do  not  doubt  to 
have  been  unavoidable,  and  that  1  know  to  be  always 
easily  possible  of  occurrence  to  the  best  and  most  fortu- 
nate of  men,  but  because  I  know  you  feel  it  heavily. 

I  wish  to  Heaven  it  were  in  my  power  to  help  M' 
Winter  to  any  new  opening  in  life.  But  you  can  hardly 
imagine  how  powerless  1  am  in  any  such  case.  My  own 
work  in  life  being  of  that  kind  that  1  must  always  do  it 
with  my  own  unassisted  hand  and  head,  1  have  such  rare 
opportunities  of  placing  any  one,  that  for  years  and  years 
I  have  been  seeking  in  vain  to  help  in  this  way  a  friend 
of  the  old  days  when  the  old  house  stood  unchanged  in 
Lombard  Street.  To  this  hour,  1  have  not  succeeded, 
though  1  have  strenuously  tried  my  hardest,  both  abroad 
and  at  home.  Commercial  opportunities,  above  all,  are 
so  far  removed  from  me,  that  I  dare  not  encourage  a 
hope  of  my  power  to  serve  M'  Winter  with  my  good 

[  125  ] 


word,  ever  coming  within  a  year's  journey  of  my  will 
and  wish  to  do  it. 

But  I  really  think  that  your  father,  who  could  do  much 
in  such  a  case  without  drawing  at  all  heavily  upon  his 
purse,^  might  be  induced  to  do,  what — I  may  say  to  you, 
Maria  —  it  is  no  great  stretch  of  sentiment  to  call  his 
duty.  Has  not  Margaret '^  great  influence  with  him.? 
Have  not  you  some  ?  And  don't  you  think  that  if  you 
were  to  set  yourself  steadily  to  exert  whatever  influence 
you  can  bring  to  bear  upon  him,  you  would  do  the  best 
within  your  reach  for  your  husband,  your  child,  and 
yourself.'  Is  it  not  all  important  that  you  should  try 
your  utmost  with  him,  at  this  time  ? 

Forgive  my  recommending  this,  if  you  have  so  antici- 
pated the  recommendation  as  to  have  done  all  that  pos- 
sibly can  be  done  to  move  him.  But  what  you  tell  me 
about  George  seems  so  strange,  so  hard,  and  so"  ill  bal- 
anced, that  I  cannot  avoid  the  subject. 

I  write  in  the  greatest  haste,  being  overwhelmed  by 
business  here.  On  Monday  I  hope  to  be  at  Gad's  Hill, 
and  to  remain  either  there  or  at  Tavistock  House  for 
months  to  come.  I  enclose  a  few  lines  to  M'  Winter,' 
and  am  ever, 

Your  faithful  friend, 

Charles  Dickens 

*  Mr.  Beadnell  left  a  property  of  some  £40,000. 
^  Mrs.  David  Lloyd,  the  eldest  sister. 

»  Brighton, 
Saturday,  Thirteenth  November,  1858. 

My  dear  Mr.  Winter,— In  the  hope  that  a  friendly  word  of 
remembrance  in  season  may  not  be  unacceptable  to  you,  I  write  to 
assure  you  of  my  sympathy  with  you  in  your  trouble.    Pray  do  not 

[126] 


Again  there  is  a  gap  in  the  correspondence 
till  the  17th  of  November,  1862.  Twelve  days 
before,  George  Beadnell  had  died  at  the  age 
of  eighty-nine.  How  different  the  treatment 
of  the  past  in  this  last  letter  as  compared  with 
his  sentimental  reflections  in  the  first  three  of 
this  second  series !  Here  the  mood  is  grave, 
moved,  but  unsentimental,  and  noticeably  de- 
tached, instead  of  being  almost  passionately 
personal.  The  erstwhile  beautiful  "  visions  of 
his  youth"  are  now  reflected  upon  his  memory 
in  the  form  of  hideous  ghosts. — 

Paris,  Rue  du  Faubourg  S"^  Honors  ,  27 

Monday,  Seventeenth  November,  1862. 

My  dear  Maria,  —  I  had  read  in  Galignani  that  your 
poor  father  was  dead,  before  I  received  your  touching  ac- 
count of  his  last  moments.      Of  course  I  could  not  be 

let  it  cast  you  down  too  much;  what  has  happened  to  you,  has 
happened  to  many  thousands  of  good  and  honorable  men,  and  will 
happen  again  in  a  like  manner,  to  the  end  of  all  things.  If  you  should 
feel  the  bitterness  of  losing  belief  in  any  nature  you  had  previously 
trusted  in,  consider  that  the  truth  is  always  better  than  falsehood, 
even  though  the  truth  involves  the  detection  of  such  slcin-deep  friend- 
ships as  that  which  can  cool  towards  a  man  in  temporary  misfortune. 
It  is  better  lost  than  kept,  as  all  things  worthless  are. 

Be  strong  of  heart  for  yourself,  and  look  forward  to  a  better  time. 
You  will  not  think,  I  know,  that  I  obtrude  myself  upon  you  in  asking 
to  be  borne  in  mind  among  the  friends  who  feel  truly  towards  you. 

Faithfully  yours  always, 

Charles  Dickens 

[127] 


surprised,  knowing  his  great  age,  by  the  wearing  out  of 
his  vitality ;  but  —  almost  equally  of  course  —  it  was  a 
shock  too,  for  all  the  old  Past  comes  out  of  its  grave 
when  I  think  of  him,  and  the  Ghosts  of  a  good  many 
years  stand  about  his  memory. 

He  died  among  his  children,  and  could  have  died  with 
no  better  words  and  no  better  hopes.  God  be  thanked  for 
it,  and  may  such  mercy  and  comfort  be  in  store  for  us ! 

Always  yours  affectionately 

Charles  Dickens 

Pray  give  my  kind  regard  to  Margaret  and  your 
brother. 

What  a  perfect  contrast,  when  we  place  the 
two  sets  of  letters  side  by  sidel  The  very 
anti-climax  of  the  last  of  the  second  set  is 
significant.  Can  the  importance  of  the  two 
sets  for  an  understanding  of  the  experiences 
which  underlay  parts  of  David  Copperfield 
and  Little  Dorrit  be  gainsaid  ?  Maria  Beadnell, 
the  young  girl,  and  Mrs.  Winter,  the  mature 
woman,  gave  Dickens  his  Dora  and  Flora.  As 
he  says  again  and  again,  Maria  Beadnell's  in- 
fluence was  at  one  time  the  strongest  in  his 
life,  and  remained  effective  in  his  character  for 
many  years.  Her  group  of  friends,  of  whom 
we  first  hear  in  these  MSS.,  gave  him  sugges- 
tions or  the  originals  for  some  of  the  notable 
figures  in  his  earlier  works. 

[128] 


The  letters  readjust  and  correct  some  previ- 
ous misapprehensions  as  to  the  relations  of  his 
work  to  his  life,  and  justify  Forster,  as  con- 
trasted with  Charles  Dickens  the  younger,  who 
persistently  attempted  in  the  introductions  to 
the  Macmillan  edition  to  minimize  the  autobio- 
graphical and  the  personal  in  his  father's  novels. 

Above  all,  these  letters  reveal  the  man  in  his 
youth,  and  later  the  youth  in  the  man,  —  im- 
petuous always,  but  as  the  years  passed,  too 
trained  of  eye,  too  skilled  in  humanity,  not  to 
see  at  once,  when  he  and  Mrs.  Winter  faced 
each  other,  the  real  proportions  of  a  situation 
into  which  he  had  dashed  at  the  call  of  his 
naturally  sentimental  imagination.  And  when 
finally  he  saw  the  real  proportions,  he  did  not 
wholly  draw  back,  leaving  only  bitterness  and 
pain  to  the  woman  whose  unwise  but  easily 
comprehensible  coquetry  with  an  old  atfection 
was  painful  to  him,  but  so  managed  the  deli- 
cate situation  as  to  remain  her  friend  and  to 
give  her  in  his  family  a  position  of  affectionate 
regard  with  those  he  loved  and  honored  most. 

Surely  Dickens  loses  nothing  from  these 
letters,  particularly  the  second  set.  Both  sets 
are  as  human  as  the  man  always  was,  and  in 
the  end  they  are  chivalrous  and,  as  a  whole, 

[129] 


tactful.  Reading  them,  one  cannot  respect 
Dickens  less;  rather  one  knows  him  better, 
seeing  the  kindliness  and  the  deep  regard  he 
had  for  friendship,  even  when  past,  and  how 
patient  he  was  willing  to  be  for  its  sake. 

There  remain  in  the  collection  of  letters 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  editor  two  which 
for  the  reason  just  mentioned,  namely,  that 
their  final  effect  is  to  right  some  misunder- 
standing of  Dickens,  it  seems  advisable  to  print. 
One  is  from  his  sister-in-law.  Miss  Georgina 
Hogarth  to  Mrs.  Winter;  the  other  is  from 
Charles  Dickens  the  younger  to  his  mother. 
Both  concern  that  very  painful  episode,  the 
separation  of  Dickens  and  his  wife  in  the 
latter  part  of  May,  18^8.  At  the  time  there 
was,  of  course,  much  petty  gossip,  some  of  it 
hostile  to  Dickens,  some  of  it  most  unkind 
and  unjust  to  Mrs.  Dickens. 

There  has  been  in  the  many  years  since 
some  censure  of  Dickens,  ranging  from  in- 
nuendoes, particularly  exasperating  because  of 
their  vagueness,  to  severe  blame  for  his  alleged 
selfishness  as  the  cause  of  the  separation.  As 
might  be  expected,  the  responsibility  must  be 
laid  to  some  extent  on  the  shoulders  of  both 
husband  and  wife.     Clearly,  in  the  light  of 

[130] 


these  two  letters  it  cannot  be  accounted  for  as 
simply,  if  alluringly,  as  that  brilliant  lover  of 
the  paradoxical,  Mr.  Chesterton,  would  have 
us  believe.  He  has  said :  "  Dickens  had  a  bad 
quality  not  intrinsically  very  terrible,  which 
he  allowed  to  wreck  his  life.  He  also  had 
a  small  weakness  that  could  sometimes  be 
stronger  than  all  his  strengths.  His  selfishness 
was  not,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  the  selfishness 
of  Gradgrind ;  he  was  particularly  compassion- 
ate and  liberal.  Nor  was  it  in  the  least  the 
selfishness  of  Skimpole.  He  was  entirely  self- 
dependent,  industrious,  and  dignified.  His  self- 
ishness was  wholly  a  selfishness  of  the  nerves. 
Whatever  his  whim  or  the  temperature  of 
the  instant  told  him  to  do,  must  be  done. 
He  was  the  type  of  man  who  would  break  a 
window  if  it  would  not  open  and  give  him  air. 
And  this  weakness  of  his  had,  by  the  time  of 
which  we  speak,  led  to  a  breach  between  him- 
self and  his  wife  which  he  was  too  exasper- 
ated and  excited  to  heal  in  time.  If  London 
bored  him,  he  must  go  to  the  Continent  at 
once;  if  the  Continent  bored  him,  he  must 
back  to  London  at  once.  If  the  day  was  too 
noisy,  the  whole  household  must  be  quiet ;  if 
night  was  too  quiet,  the  whole  household  must 

[131] 


wake  up.  Above  all,  he  had  this  supreme 
character  of  the  domestic  despot  —  that  his 
good  temper  was,  if  possible,  more  despotic 
than  his  bad  temper.  When  he  was  miserable 
(as  he  often  was,  poor  fellow !),  they  only  had 
to  listen  to  his  railings.  When  he  was  happy, 
they  had  to  listen  to  his  novels.  All  this, 
which  was  mainly  mere  excitability,  did  not 
seem  to  amount  to  much;  it  did  not  in  the 
least  mean  that  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  clean- 
living  and  kind-hearted  and  quite  honest  man. 
But  there  was  this  evil  about  it  —  that  he  did 
not  resist  his  little  weakness  at  all;  he  pam- 
pered it  as  Skimpole  pampered  his.  A  mere 
silly  trick  of  temperament  did  everything  that 
the  blackest  misconduct  could  have  done.  A 
random  sensibility,  started  about  the  shuffling 
of  papers  or  the  shutting  of  a  window, 
ended  by  tearing  two  clean.  Christian  people 
from  each  other,  like  a  blast  of  bigamy  or 
adultery."^ 

The  trouble  with  this  clever  passage  is  its 
avoidance  of  the  fact  that  one  of  the  chief 
sources  of  fallacy  in  the  logic  of  human  conduct 
lies  in  multiplicity  of  causes.  Of  course,  the 
irritability,  the  hypersensitiveness  of  Dickens 

^  Charles  Dickens,  G.  H.  Chesterton,  pp.  209--210. 
[132] 


played  its  part  in  preparing  for  the  catastrophe, 
but  it  was  not  the  only  cause. 

But  first  to  recall  the  separation :  "  Thence- 
forward [after  the  end  of  May,  18^8]  he  and 
his  wife  lived  apart.  The  eldest  son  went  with 
his  mother,  Dickens  at  once  giving  effect  to 
her  expressed  wish  in  this  respect,  and  the 
other  children  remained  with  himself,  their 
intercourse  with  Mrs.  Dickens  being  left  en- 
tirely to  themselves.  [We  shall  see  that  this 
last  statement  requires  a  slight  modification.] 
It  was  thus  far  an  arrangement  of  a  strictly 
private  nature,  and  no  decent  person  could 
have  had  excuse  for  regarding  it  in  any  other 
light,  if  public  attention  had  not  been  unex- 
pectedly invited  to  it  by  a  printed  statement 
in  Household  PVords.  Dickens  was  stung 
into  this  by  some  miserable  gossip  at  which 
in  ordinary  circumstances  no  man  would  have 
been  more  determinedly  silent;  but  he  had 
now  publicly  to  show  himself,  at  stated  times, 
as  a  public  entertainer,  and  this,  with  his 
name  even  so  aspersed,  he  found  to  be  impos- 
sible. All  he  would  concede  to  my  strenuous 
resistance  against  such  a  publication  was  an 
offer  to  suppress  it,  if,  upon  reference  to  the 
opinion  of  a  certain  distinguished  man  (still 

[  133 1 


livings),  that  opinion  should  prove  to  be  in 
agreement  with  mine.  Unhappily  it  fell  in 
with  his  own,  and  the  publication  went  on."^ 
To  understand  the  mood  which  could  make 
possible  such  an  address  as  the  following  by 
an  individual  to  the  great  public  concerning 
his  most  intimate  personal  affairs,  one  must 
recall  that  for  years  Dickens  had  every  right 
which  constant  adulation  from  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  and  America  could  give  to  feel 
that  whatever  touched  his  life  was  of  the 
keenest  interest  to  them.  The  pronuncia- 
mento  makes  sad  reading  at  this  distant  day, 
but  here  it  is,  as  it  appeared  in  Household 
M^ords,  June  12,  18^8:  — 

Three -and -twenty  years  have  passed  since  I  entered  on 
my  present  relations  with  the  Public.  They  began  when 
I  was  so  young,  that  1  find  them  to  have  existed  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Through  all  that  time  I  have  tried  to  be  as  faithful  to 
the  Public,  as  they  have  been  to  me.  It  was  my  duty 
never  to  trifle  with  them,  or  deceive  them,  or  presume 
upon  their  favor,  or  do  any  thing  with  it  but  work  hard 
to  justify  it.  I  have  always  endeavoured  to  discharge 
that  duty. 

My  conspicuous  position  has  often  made  me  the  sub- 
ject of  fabulous  stories  and  unaccountable  statements. 

1  Forster's  Life  of  Charles  Dickens. 

[134] 


Occasionally,  such  things  have  chafed  me,  or  even 
wounded  me ;  but,  I  have  always  accepted  them  as  the 
shadows  inseparable  from  the  light  of  my  notoriety  and 
success.  I  have  never  obtruded  any  such  personal  uneasi- 
ness of  mine,  upon  the  generous  aggregate  of  my  audience. 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life,  and  I  believe  for  the  last, 
I  now  deviate  from  the  principle  1  have  so  long  observed, 
by  presenting  myself  in  my  own  Journal  in  my  own 
private  character,  and  entreating  all  my  brethren  (as 
they  deem  that  they  have  reason  to  think  well  of  me, 
and  to  know  that  I  am  a  man  who  has  ever  been  unaf- 
fectedly true  to  our  common  calling) ,  to  lend  their  aid 
to  the  dissemination  of  my  present  words. 

Some  domestic  trouble  of  mine,  of  long  standing,  on 
which  I  will  make  no  further  remark  than  that  it  claims 
to  be  respected,  as  being  of  a  sacredly  private  nature,  has 
lately  been  brought  to  an  arrangement,  which  involves  no 
anger  or  ill-will  of  any  kind,  and  the  whole  origin,  prog- 
ress, and  surrounding  circumstances  of  which  have  been, 
throughout,  within  the  knowledge  of  my  children.  It  is 
amicably  composed,  and  its  details  have  now  but  to  be 
forgotten  by  those  concerned  in  it. 

By  some  means,  arising  out  of  wickedness,  or  out  of 
folly,  or  out  of  inconceivable  wild  chance,  or  out  of  all 
three,  this  trouble  has  been  made  the  occasion  of  mis- 
representations, most  grossly  false,  most  monstrous,  and 
most  cruel  —  involving,  not  only  me,  but  innocent  persons 
dear  to  my  heart,  and  innocent  persons  of  whom  I  have 
no  knowledge,  if,  indeed,  they  have  any  existence  —  and 
so  widely  spread,  that  I  doubt  if  one  reader  in  a  thousand 
will  peruse  these  lines,  by  whom  some  touch  of  the 

[135] 


breath  of  these  slanders  will  not  have  passed,  like  an 
unwholesome  air. 

Those  who  know  me  and  my  nature,  need  no  assur- 
ance under  my  hand  that  such  calumnies  are  as  irrecon- 
cilable  with  me,  as  they  are,  in  their  frantic  incoherence, 
with  one  another.  But,  there  is  a  great  multitude  who 
know  me  through  my  writings,  and  who  do  not  know 
me  otherwise ;  and  1  cannot  bear  that  one  of  them  should 
be  left  in  doubt,  or  hazard  of  doubt,  through  my  poorly 
shrinking  from  taking  the  unusual  means  to  which  I  now 
resort,  of  circulating  the  Truth. 

I  most  solemnly  declare,  then  —  and  this  I  do,  both  in 
my  own  name  and  in  my  wife's  name  —  that  all  the 
lately  whispered  rumours  touching  the  trouble  at  which 
I  have  glanced,  are  abominably  false.  And  that  who- 
soever repeats  one  of  them  after  this  denial,  will  lie 
as  wilfully  and  as  foully  as  it  is  possible  for  any  false 
witness  to  lie,  before  Heaven  and  earth. 

For  some  time  previous  to  the  parting  it 
had  been  apparent  to  his  friends  that  a  special 
spirit  of  unrest  had  entered  into  his  life.  It 
showed  itself  in  the  boisterous  mirth  of  his 
home  circle,  the  reckless  gaiety  of  his  trips 
with  Stansfield,  Collins,  and  his  other  friends  to 
Paris ;  the  wanderings  to  and  fro  on  his  read- 
ing engagements  and  of  private  theatricals  in 
various  parts  of  the  country.  The  naturally 
restless  energy  of  his  character  had  received 
an  intense  if  morbid  stimulus  from  the  rest- 

[136] 


lessness  of  his  mind.  He  phrased  his  restless- 
ness in  a  letter,  of  July  22,  18^7,  to  Miss 
Mary  Boyle:  "  This  is  one  of  what  I  call  my 
wandering  days  before  I  fall  to  work.  I  seem 
to  be  always  looking  at  such  times  for  some- 
thing I  have  not  found  in  life,  but  may  possi- 
bly come  to  a  few  thousand  years  hence,  in 
some  other  part  of  some  other  system.  God 
knows  1 "  It  appeared,  too,  as  has  already 
been  pointed  out  in  a  number  of  his  letters 
from  18^6  to  1858  to  Forster.  For  instance, 
—  "  Why  is  it,  that  as  with  poor  David,  a  sense 
comes  always  crushing  on  me  now,  when  I 
fall  into  low  spirits,  as  of  one  happiness  I  have 
missed  in  life,  and  one  friend  and  companion 
I  have  never  made.  .  .  .  The  old  days  —  the 
old  daysl  Shall  I  ever,  I  wonder,  get  the 
frame  of  mind  back  as  it  used  to  be  then  ? 
...  I  fmd  that  the  skeleton  in  my  domestic 
closet  is  becoming  a  pretty  big  one."^ 

The  following  extract  from  an  unpublished 
letter  of  Dickens  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Wills,  the 
manager  of  Household  IVords,  dated  Paris, 
April  27,  18^8,  well  shows  the  intensely  irri- 
tated condition  of  Dickens  which  preceded 
the  separation:  — 

1  Life,  Forster,  vol.  iii.  pp.  184-185. 

[137] 


"My  arrangements  are  these  —  the  tent  is 
striking  here,  and  I  can't  work  in  the  midst 
of  the  unsettled  domesticity.  The  Hogarth 
family  don't  leave  Tavistock  House  till  next 
Saturday,  and  I  cannot  in  the  meantime  bear 
the  contemplation  of  their  imbecility  any 
more  (I  think  my  constitution  is  already  un- 
dermined). The  sight  of  Hogarth  at  break- 
fast !  I  am  therefore  going  to  leave  here  by 
the  mail  next  Tuesday  morning  for  Dover, 
where  I  shall  stay  at  the  Ship  (working  I  hope 
in  the  mornings),  tic." 

Clearly  enough,  the  saddest  of  all  causes, 
because  the  most  irreconcilable,  incompati- 
bility of  temperament  lay  back  of  all  this. 
Steadily  it  sapped  away  all  the  foundations 
of  an  affection  originally  very  strong.  In  the 
light  of  the  letters  to  follow,  it  is  evident  that 
Dickens'  own  statement  of  the  case  was  more 
correct  than  it  has  been  held  to  be, — is,  indeed, 
entirely  just.    He  thus  wrote  to  Forster :  — 

"Poor  Catherine  and  I  are  not  made  for 
each  other,  and  there  is  no  help  for  it.  It  is 
not  only  that  she  makes  me  uneasy  and  un- 
happy, but  that  I  make  her  so  too — and  much 
more  so.  She  is  exactly  what  you  know,  in 
the  way  of  being  amiable  and  complying ;  but 

[138] 


we  are  strangely  ill-assorted  for  the  bond  there 
is  between  us.  God  knows  she  would  have 
been  a  thousand  times  happier  if  she  had 
married  another  kind  of  man,  and  that  her 
avoidance  of  this  destiny  would  have  been  at 
least  equally  good  for  us  both.  I  am  often 
cut  to  the  heart  by  thinking  what  a  pity  it  is, 
for  her  own  sake,  that  I  ever  fell  in  her  way; 
and  if  I  were  sick  or  disabled  tomorrow,  I 
know  how  sorry  she  would  be,  and  how 
deeply  grieved  myself,  to  think  how  we  had 
lost  each  other.  But  exactly  the  same  incom- 
patibility would  arise,  the  moment  I  was  well 
again ;  and  nothing  on  earth  could  make  her 
understand  me,  or  suit  us  to  each  other.  Her 
temperament  will  not  go  with  mine.  It  mat- 
tered not  so  much  when  we  had  only  our- 
selves to  consider,  but  reasons  have  been 
growing  since  which  make  it  all  but  hope- 
less that  we  should  even  try  to  struggle  on. 
What  is  now  befalling  me  I  have  seen  steadily 
coming,  ever  since  the  days  you  remember 
when  Mary  was  born ;  and  I  know  too  well 
that  you  cannot,  and  no  one  can,  help  me." 
Again  he  wrote  to  Forster :  "  You  are  not  so 
tolerant  as  perhaps  you  might  be  of  the  way- 
ward and  unsettled  feeling  which  is  part  (I 

[139] 


suppose)  of  the  tenure  on  which  one  holds 
an  imaginative  life ;  and  which  1  have,  as  you 
ought  to  know  well,  often  only  kept  down  by 
riding  over  it  like  a  dragoon  —  but  let  that  go 
by.  ...  I  claim  no  immunity  from  blame. 
There  is  plenty  of  fault  on  my  side,  I  dare 
say,  in  the  way  of  a  thousand  uncertainties, 
caprices,  and  difficulties  of  disposition;  but 
only  one  thing  will  alter  all  that,  and  that  is, 
the  end  which  alters  everything."  * 

This  letter  of  Miss  Hogarth,  written  with- 
out the  remotest  thought  of  publication,  and 
an  extremely  intimate  letter  of  the  younger 
Charles  Dickens  to  his  mother,  sufficiently 
prove  the  truth  of  this  analysis  by  Dickens  of 
the  unhappy  situation.  The  originals  of  both 
letters  are  in  Mr.  Bixby's  possession.  Miss 
Hogarth  wrote  thus,  just  at  the  end  of  the 
very  trying  month  which  had  ended  with  the 
separation :  — 

Tavistock  House,  May  31st,  1858. 

My  dearest  Maria,  —  There  will  be  no  mistake 
about  your  tickets  this  time.''  Charles  has  charged  M' 
Arthur  Smith  with  full  particulars  and  he  will  forward 
them  to  you,  in  due  course. 

1  Life,  Forster,  vol.  iii.  pp.  186-188. 

2  For  one  of  the  famous  "  Readings."  Mr.  Arthur  Smith  was 
the  manager  for  these  lectures. 

[  140  ] 


I  am  now  going  to  tell  you  something  which  will,  I  am 
sure,  surprise  you,  and,  at  the  first,  shock  and  distress 
you.  It  is  that  Charles  and  his  wife  have  agreed  to  live 
apart,  in  future.  Believe  me  when  1  assure  you  that  1  am 
perfectly  convimed  that  this  plan  will  be  for  the  happiness 
of  all.  I  worked  hard  to  prevent  it,  as  long  as  I  saw  any 
possibility,  but  latterly  1  have  come  to  the  conviction  that 
there  was  no  other  way  out  of  the  domestic  Misery  of 
this  house.  For  my  sister  and  Charles  have  lived  un- 
happily for  years  —  they  were  totally  unsuited  to  each 
other  in  almost  every  respect  —  and  as  the  children  grew 
up  this  unsuitability  developed  itself  more  strongly,  and 
disagreements  and  Miseries  which  used  to  be  easily  kept 
out  of  sight  have  forced  themselves  into  notice. 

Unhappily,  also,  by  some  constitutional  misfortune  and 
incapacity,  my  sister  always,  from  their  infancy,  threw 
her  children  upon  other  people,  consequently  as  they 
grew  up,  there  was  not  the  usual  strong  tie  between  them 
and  her  —  in  short  for  many  years,  although  we  have  put 
a  good  face  upon  it,  we  have  been  very  miserable  at  home. 
My  sister  has  often  expressed  a  desire  to  go  and  live 
away,  but  Charles  never  agreed  to  it  on  the  girls'  account ; 
but  latterly  he  thought  it  must  be  to  their  advantage  as 
well  as  to  his  own  and  Catherine's,  to  consent  to  this  and 
remodel  their  unhappy  home.  So,  by  mutual  consent 
and  for  the  reasons  I  have  told  you,  and  no  other,  they 
have  come  to  this  arrangement.  She  is  to  have  a  house 
of  her  own  in  London,  and  her  eldest  son  (at  his  father's 
request  and  not  taking  any  part  or  showing  any  prefer- 
ence in  doing  it)  is  to  live  with  and  take  care  of  her. 
The  other  children  remain  with  their  father  —  his  eldest 

[  141] 


daughter  naturally  taking  her  mother's  place,  as  mis- 
tress of  the  house.  She  and  Katy  and  I  will  divide  the 
work  amongst  us,  but  all  the  dignity  will  be  Mary's,  and 
she  will  do  the  honours  modestly,  gracefully  and  prettily, 
1  know. 

Of  course,  Charles  is  too  public  a  man  to  take  such 
a  step  as  this  without  exciting  a  more  than  usual  nine 
days'  wonder  —  and  we  have  heard  of  the  most  wonder- 
ful rumours  and  wicked  slanders  which  have  been  flying 
about  the  town  as  to  the  cause  of  this  separation.  To  a 
few  of  our  real  friends  Charles  wishes  the  truth  to  be 
stated,  and  they  cannot  show  their  friendship  better  than 
by  quietly  silencing  with  the  real  solemn  truth  any  foolish 
or  wicked  person  who  may  repeat  such  lies  and  slanders. 

Charles  sends  you  his  best  love  and  to  dear  Ella  his 
birthday  congratulations.  You  can  understand  how 
much  he  has  been  harassed  and  occupied  with  all  this 
business  and  his  readings  besides,  and  that  he  has  very 
little  time  to  write  letters  just  now. 

Give  my  particular  love  to  Ella  on  Wednesday  and 
wish  her  many  happy  returns  of  the  day,  and  with  our 
united  kind  regards  to  M'  Winter,  believe  me, 

My  dearest  Maria, 
Affectionately  yours  always, 

Georgina  Hogarth 

How  filled  with  dramatic  contrasts  were  the 
relations  of  Maria  Beadnell  and  Dickens  1  Not 
only  did  the  youth  who  had  felt  himself 
scorned  and  mortified  come,  twenty  years 
later,  to  hold  just  the  attitude  of  tolerant, 

[  142  ] 


kindly  indifference  which  in  Maria  Beadnell 
had  maddened  him  at  times,  but  she  at  forty 
odd,  when  ready  to  revive  the  old  sentimental 
relationship,  found  herself  taken  into  the  family 
confidence  concerning  a  separation  from  the 
woman  who  had  in  Dickens'  youth  replaced 
her. 

That  the  sympathy  of  the  children  was  with 
Dickens  is  shown  by  the  arrangements  made 
and  by  this  letter  written  by  the  eldest  son, 
some  six  weeks  after  the  preceding :  — 

BiSHOPSGATE  Street  Within,^ 
13  July,  1858. 

My  dear  Mother,  —  Although  I  much  regret  being 
the  medium  of  the  communication  I  have  to  make  to 
you,  still,  as  1  know  it  is  part  of  the  duty  I  have  set  be- 
fore myself  1  accept  it  without  hesitation.    It  is  this :  — 

On  arriving  this  morning  from  Henley  I  found  await- 
ing me  a  letter  from  my  father  referring  to  your  letter  to 
Frank.  He  says :  "  I  myself  took  out  of  our  Deed  of 
Separation  the  usual  formal  clause  inserted  by  her  own 
solicitors,  that  she  should  have  access  to  the  children  ex- 
cept at  Tavistock  House.  That  exception  seemed  to  me 
to  convey  an  unnecessary  slight  upon  her,  and  1  said  that 
she  should  see  them  there  or  anywhere."  You  see  there- 
fore that  you  have  a  distinct  right  to  see  the  children 
when,  where,  or  how  you  please,  but  he  places  these  re- 

1  This  letter  is  printed  from  the  original,  which  is  in  Mr.  Bixby's 
collection. 

[143  1 


strictions  on  their  visits,  which  I  am  particularly  desirous 
to  impress  upon  you  {from  myself,  and  not  from  him), 
he  has  the  most  perfect  right  and  power  to  do : 

"  I  positively  forbid  the  children  ever  to  utter  one  word 
to  their  grandmother  or  to  Helen  Hogarth.  If  they  are  ever 
brought  into  the  presence  of  either  of  these  two,  1  charge 
them  immediately  to  leave  your  mother's  house  and 
come  back  to  me."  —  And  further  in  reference  to  Mr. 
Lemon,  "  I  positively  forbid  the  children  ever  to  see  him 
or  to  speak  to  him,  and  for  the  same  reason  I  absolutely 
prohibit  them  ever  being  taken  to  Mr.  Evans'  house."  ^ 

You  will  see  that  as  far  as  you  are  concerned  he  has  no 
desire,  and,  in  fact  no  power,  if  he  had  the  wish,  to  keep 
them  from  you  ;  but  he  has,  as  their  father,  an  absolute 
right  to  prevent  their  going  into  any  society  which  may 
be  distasteful  to  him,  as  long  as  they  remain  under  age. 
I  think  it  necessary  to  point  this  out  to  you  strongly,  in 
order  that  there  may  be  no  unnecessary  and  useless  talk 
on  this  matter.  And  here,  I  trust,  the  subject  will  rest 
between  us. 

I  shall  sleep  at  Queen's  Road  to-night  as  I  have  a 
good  deal  to  pack  up  there.  I  will  be  home  to  dinner 
tomorrow  at  six  and  will  then  permanently  take  up  my 
quarters  with  you.  Till  then  I  remain,  ever,  your  most 
affectionate  son,  Charley 

Surely  one  cannot  censure  the  details  of  the 
settlement  itself.    Rather,  it  is  the  lack  of  pro- 

»  The  coupling  of  Mr.  Lemon's  name  with  that  of  Mr.  Evans 
would  suggest  that  the  cause  of  offence  of  this  old  friend  was 
similar,  —  an  inability  to  agree  with  all  the  measures  of  Dickens 
at  this  time,  especially  his  pronunciamento  to  the  public. 

[  144] 


portion,  the  willingness  to  rush  into  print, 
which  one  regrets.  All  that  Dickens  saw 
wrongly  at  the  moment  were  his  cherished  re- 
lations with  the  public  which  had  lionized  him 
so  long.  Bewildered  by  the  insistent  fear  that 
they  would  do  him  what  he  felt  to  be  grave 
injustice,  he  lost  all  sense  of  real  values.  He 
even  wanted  Tuncb,  of  all  papers,  to  print  the 
pronunciamento  which  he  had  given  in  House- 
bold  PVords.  When  his  old  publishers  and 
friends,  Bradbury  and  Evans,  refused  very 
properly,  he  broke  with  them  for  good,  writing 
thus  to  Mr.  Evans,  in  the  white  heat  of  his 
anger :  — 

Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  had  stern  occasion  to  impress 
upon  my  children  that  their  father's  name  is  their  best 
possession,  and  that  it  would  indeed  be  trifled  with  and 
wasted  by  him  if  either  through  himself  or  through  them 
he  held  any  terms  with  those  who  had  been  false  to  it  in 
the  very  greatest  need  and  under  the  very  greatest  wrong 
it  has  ever  known.  You  know  very  well  why  (with 
hard  distress  of  mind  and  bitter  disappointment)  I  have 
been  forced  to  include  you  in  this  class.  I  have  no 
more  to  say. 

Charles  Dickens 

It  would,  however,  be  most  unjust  to  leave 
as  the  result  of  this  examination  of  the  letters 

[145] 


the  idea  that  Dickens  was  probably  as  little  to 
blame  for  the  complicated  marital  relations  as 
he  was  in  the  tinal  settlement.  Had  the  lot  of 
Mrs.  Dickens  been  easy?  Dickens  himself 
admitted :  "  There  is  plenty  of  fault  on  my 
side,  I  dare  say."  Evidently  he  did  not  recall 
the  exact  incidents,  but  was  willing  to  grant 
this  much.  There  lay  the  trouble :  much  that 
must  have  been  most  trying  in  him  was  done 
or  said  without  the  slightest  thought  of  its 
eifect  on  those  around  him.  Mrs.  Dickens  mar- 
ried a  rising  young  author  when  he  was  but 
twenty-four.  "  A  very  young  man  fighting 
his  way,  and  excessively  poor,  with  no  memo- 
ries for  years  that  were  not  monotonous  and 
mean,  and  with  his  strongest  and  most  per- 
sonal memories  quite  ignominious  and  unen- 
durable, was  suddenly  thrown  into  the  society 
of  a  whole  family  of  girls  [the  Hogarth  sisters]. 
I  think  it  does  not  overstate  his  weakness  and 
I  think  it  partly  constitutes  his  excuse,  to  say 
that  he  fell  in  love  with  all  of  them.  As 
sometimes  happens  in  the  undeveloped  youth, 
an  abstract  femininity  simply  intoxicated  him. 
And  again,  I  think  we  shall  not  be  mistakenly 
accused  of  harshness  if  we  put  the  point  in 
this  way;  that  by  a  kind  of  accident  he  got 

[  146] 


hold  of  the  wrong  sister."*  That  statement 
of  Mr.  Chesterton  needs  modification,  because 
he  did  not  know  of  the  love  affair  with  Maria 
Beadnell ;  but  the  idea  is  fundamentally  right. 
Just  because  of  a  rebuff  in  his  recent  experi- 
ence, Dickens  basked  in  the  affection  shown 
him  by  the  Hogarth  sisters,  expanding  grate- 
fully in  its  warmth.  He  made  his  choice  only 
to  fmd,  as  has  many  another  man  who  chose 
when  young,  that  he  had  missed  in  a  family 
the  one  who  might  have  been  the  perfect 
helpmate  of  whom  he  dreamed. 

But  would  this  other  have  been  the  perfect 
helpmate?  Very  likely  not;  for  Dickens,  in  his 
highly  wrought  sensitiveness,  must  at  times 
have  been,  as  Mrs.  Carlyle  said  of  her  soul- 
wearying  husband,  "  gey  ill  to  live  wi'." 
Moreover,  it  is  one  thing  to  be  the  wife,  quite 
another  the  sympathizing  friend,  close,  but 
neither  so  close  as  the  wife,  nor  yet  exempted 
from  the  many  little  courtesies  which  many  a 
man  expects  his  wife  to  do  without.  Imme- 
diately after  the  marriage  and  till  her  premature 
death  in  1837,  Mary  Hogarth  was  constantly 
with  the  young  wife.  Of  course  Mrs.  Dickens 
loved  her  sister,  but  would  any  affectionate 

1  Charles  Dickens,  G.  H.  Chesterton,  pp.  66-67. 
[147] 


woman  wholly  enjoy  hearing  her  husband 
talk  freely  of  a  love  for  her  deceased  sister  so 
profound  that  he  wished  to  be  buried  in  the 
same  grave  with  her?  Surely  such  talk  before 
the  mother  of  his  increasing  family,  and  in 
the  presence  of  others  than  those  belonging 
to  the  immediate  family  circle,  was  scarcely 
tactful.  And  in  1842  Georgina  Hogarth,  com- 
petent, wise,  controlled,  alert  for  every  need  of 
Dickens,  came  into  the  household.  As  the 
years  passed,  Mrs.  Dickens  saw  nearly  all  the 
duties  and  affections  dearest  to  a  woman  as 
wife  pass  to  Miss  Hogarth.  Admit  that  her 
own  inertia  or  inability  made  all  this  neces- 
sary, —  what  we  are  responsible  for  cuts  none 
the  less  deep.  Nor  is  it  a  balm  to  the  wounded 
spirit  to  know  that  we  have  no  real  ground 
for  complaint.  Dickens  needed  a  wife  who 
could  at  all  times  command  his  admiration; 
whose  superiority  to  himself  in  household 
matters  as  well  as  matters  of  the  spirit  he 
could  not  but  admit.  Neither  of  these  did 
Mrs.  Dickens  provide ;  hence  the  tragedy. 

These  last  two  letters  make  clear  the  truth 
of  the  analysis  by  Dickens  of  the  situation 
published  long  ago  by  Forster.  They  should 
set  at  rest  all  hints  and  stories  going  to  show 

[148] 


that  this  was  more  than  a  domestic  tragedy 
resulting  from  incompatibility  of  temper.  For 
this  purpose,  and  this  alone,  the  two  letters 
are  printed  here. 

Surely  all  the  letters  in  this  volume,  but  more 
particularly  the  last  two,  show  that  in  all  the 
puzzle  of  life,  even  to  a  great  novelist  when  he 
must  live  it  rather  than  write  of  it,  Dickens 
did  his  best  to  be  the  man  he  could  be  in  his 
best  moods.  Whatever  his  petulance  at  times, 
whatever  his  sensitiveness  to  public  opinion, 
so  great  that  even  in  his  will  he  could  insist 
that  the  amount  he  had  allowed  Mrs.  Dickens 
for  her  support  since  the  separation  should  be 
known,  yet  at  all  the  crises  of  his  experiences, 
as  these  letters  show  more  than  once,  he  re- 
vealed the  finer  and  sounder  humanity  that 
was  in  him.  From  each  crisis  he  comes  forth, 
on  the  whole,  as  fundamentally  right  in  feeling 
and  as  steadily  striving  toward  his  ideals. 

George  P.  Baker. 


[149] 


FAREWELL   BEQUESTS 
[Anne's  Prayer,  referred  to  on  page  123.] 

Ere  the  last  fleeting  ties  of  life  are  broken 
While  those  I  love  around  me  weeping  stand. 
Let  me  dispense  to  each  some  parting  token 
Of  one  fast  hastening  to  the  spirit-land. 
Language  &  gifts  but  feebly  can  impart 
The  deep  affection  of  my  ardent  heart, 
Yet,  dearest  friends,  these  last  memorials  take, 
And  prize  them  for  my  sake. 

Father  —  thy  high  &  stainless  reputation 
By  the  pure  diamond  well  may  imaged  be, 
Accept  this  ring  —  see  how  its  radiation 
Casts  round  its  neighbourhood  a  brilliancy. 
Within  thy  home  I  thus  have  honoured  dwelt. 
And  when  the  world  has  praised  me,  I  have  felt 
That  in  its  homage  I  should  not  partake, 
Save  for  my  father's  sake. 

Mother  —  this  locket  thou  wilt  fondly  cherish. 
Not  for  its  outward  shrine  of  gold  &  pearls. 
It  guards  a  part  of  me  that  need  not  perish,  — 
One  of  my  lavish  store  of  auburn  curls. 
Methinks  I  could  not  to  thy  share  assign 
Aught  that  appeared  so  fully,  truly  mine  — 
This  relic  of  thy  grateful  daughter  take 
And  wear  it  for  her  sake. 
[150] 


Sister,  —  receive  this  lute,  its  sprightly  numbers 
Once  gaily  sounded  by  our  joyous  hearth, 
But  when  thou  see'st  me  laid  in  death's  cold  slumbers, 
Touch  it  no  more  to  songs  of  festal  mirth. 
Sing  of  the  meetings  of  fond  friends  above. 
Sing  of  God's  wondrous  grace  &  pardoning  love  ; 
These  holy  strains  at  peaceful  evening  wake, 
For  thy  poor  sister's  sake. 

Brother  —  my  little  brother  —  thou  hast  tended 
Often  with  me  my  greenhouse  plants  &  flow'rs  ; 
Take  their  sole  charge  —  they  safely  are  defended 
By  fostering  walls  from  sudden  blights  &  showers. 
Thus  is  thy  childhood  in  its  tender  bloom. 
Trained  with  fond  care,  &  kept  from  storm  and  gloom ; 
Dear  child,  improvement  daily  strive  to  make 
For  thy  kind  parent's  sake. 

I  seek  in  vain  one  absent,  erring  brother, 
Alas !  he  wanders  on  a  foreign  sod. 
Yet  when  thou  next  shalt  see  him,  give  him,  mother, 
This  sacred  volume  —  't  is  the  word  of  God. 
Tell  him  his  sister  asked  in  constant  prayer, 
That  he  in  its  blest  promises  might  share. 
Bid  him  from  sin's  delusive  trance  awake, 
For  his  soul's  precious  sake. 

Lov'd  ones  —  why  gaze  upon  these  gifts  with  sadness  ? 
My  worldly  wants  &  wishes  are  at  rest. 
Dost  thou  not  know  1  go  in  trusting  gladness 
To  take  possession  of  a  vast  bequest .? 

[151] 


That  heritage  was  by  my  Saviour  given, 
When  he  descended  from  his  throne  in  heaven, 
Sorrow  &  suffering  on  himself  to  take, 
For  man's  poor  sinful  sake. 

Not  mine  alone  those  treasures  of  salvation ; 
The  precious  boon  extends,  dear  friends,  to  thee, 
Then  mourn  not  for  our  transient  separation ; 
But  when  I  leave  thee,  think  &  speak  of  me 
As  of  a  freed  one  mounting  to  the  skies, 
Called  from  a  world  of  snares  &  vanities, 
Her  place  amid  the  blessed  Saints  to  take, 
For  her  Redeemer's  sake. 


[152] 


* 


MR.  AND  MRS.  :CHARLES  DICKENS 

Photographic  reproduction  of  original  (unpub- 
lished) sketches  made  by  Pierre  Morand,  an  Ameri- 
can, who  sailed  on  the  Britania  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Dickens  upon  the  occasion  of  their  visit  to  America 
in  January,  1842.  The  originals  are  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  \A/.  K.  Bixby. 


-dijqnu)   lenigho  lo  noao;;5o.  j  .,   airiqfiT^r.^r.rf^ 
-iiamA  ns  .bnsioM  snat*?  yd  absm  aario:-  r! 

.3iM  bnc   iM  ri:fiw  eioB^hS  aril  no  bafifie  oriv. 
sohamA  oJ  tisiv  li^di  \o  noi?.BODO  aril  noqu  ananfoiCi 
nohosIIoD  ariJ  ni  31b  3lBni§iio  sriT     .sf^Si  ,\{aKwnB{,  ni 

•Ydxia  .>] 


vv^- 


.'«'.-■ 


.■\ 


%^ 


•A'^c: 


'■^^i' 


CHARl-ES  DICKENS 

Facsimile  reproduction  of  an  original  (unpub- 
lished sketch  by  Pierre  Morand, — in  the  collection  of 
Mr.  W.  K.  Bixby. 

"  This  bust  profile  sketch  was  taken  and  nearly 
half  finished  on  Sunday  afternoon,  23rd  January, 
1842,  while  the  original  was  standing  at  a  window 
looking  into  the  street.  It  being  on  a  larger  scale 
than  the  others,  the  likeness  is  greatly  more  perfect, 
and  when  I  showed  it  to  Mr.  Dickens  next  morning, 
he  was  exceedingly  pleased  with  it,  though  he  pro- 
nounced it  somewhat  flattering.  I  do  not  remember 
any  likeness  of  him  published  before  the  perfection 
of  photography  that  expresses  his  character  as  faith- 
fully as  this."-  Pierre  Morand. 


-doqnu )   Ifinigho  hb   lo  noiJ3uboiq3T    MicnisoB'^ 
lo  noiio^lloo  sdl  ni — .bneioM  anai*?  yd  rioJsda  bariail 

•Xdxia  .X  .W  .iM 
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wobniw  B  iB  gnibnBia  bbw  iBnigho  ariJ  aliriw  ,s^8i 
alBoa  73§ib1  b  no  gniad  il  J^^iia  3ri:f  olni  gni^/ool 
,JD3li3q  3iom  ylJfisig  ai  aaansjltl  ariJ  ,ai3dJo  ariJ  nedj 
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-oiq  3d  dguodJ  ,ii  diiw  beiSBolq  ylgnibaaoxa  2bw  ari 
iddrndmaT  Jon  ob  I  .gnhaJjBft  Jeriwamoa  ii  baonuon 
noiJDsliaq  ariJ  aiolad  badaildoq  mid  lo  aaana^il  yne 
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UMAHOM  aHfl.Hi'^I     ".aidJ  ae  yffut 


a  •  •    *   • 


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-^^^ 


•        "  .  "^    .    ■  •     .      >■  «        »    .  . 


The  following  invitation  in  rhyme,  written 
by  Charles  Dickens,  is  addressed  to  Mark 
Lemon,  the  editor  of  Punch.  It  is  signed  by 
Charles  Dickens  as  "T.  Sparkler"  (his  signa- 
ture as  such  is  said  to  be  unique),  and  by  his 
wife  and  the  two  daughters,  Mary  and  Katie. 
Mrs.  Dickens'  sister.  Miss  Georgina  Hogarth, 
who  is  still  living,  was  a  member  of  the  house- 
hold at  the  time,  and  signed  the  invitation. 
About  the  time  of  separating  from  his  wife, 
Dickens  had  a  falling  out  with  Mark  Lemon 
and  positively  forbade  the  children  "ever  to 
see  him  or  to  speak  to  him,"  as  will  be  seen 
by  the  letter  printed  on  page  144.  ^ 


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FWVij 


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